Understanding
by Angelfirenze
Summary: Blanks in 'Middle Son' being filled in, I would hope... Takes place during certain points of 'Middle Son' otherwise alluded to. AtS/BtVS/NCIS AU conflagration.
1. Stained

**Stained**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Whedon, et al. and Bellasario own everyone.

**Summary:** Connor shivered, his eyes burning as he shut them against the tableau, not wanting to say it was real, but not wanting to call it a façade but knowing his life hadn't gone this way. Nothing had gone this way and he _knew_ it.

**Notes:** This scene takes place before 'Middle Son', which some of you may recall that I'm working on. *small grin* I've decided to start filling in a few gaps now that I think about them... Anyway, it references 'Reprise' quite a bit.

Look, if this one makes you cry, just know I did, too.

Stained

Connor lay staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore another surge of violence that insisted upon making itself known. He felt like crying. Most guys his age only had constant horniness to worry about, _no_, Connor also had an urge to kill of unspecific origin to worry about. He'd instead been honed into a fine machine for ending the lives of various evil entities that walked the earth and other terrains, as well.

Why couldn't he just be normal?

Brushing away tears, Connor lunged to his feet and dashed across his room with inhuman speed, his hands coming to rest atop his dresser, his eyes staring ceaselessly into the image he saw in the mirror. Even with what others would call concrete evidence, Connor didn't know who or what he was looking at. He whirled around, leaning back and letting the edge of the dresser dig into the skin of his naked back, staring around his bedroom and taking note of his bedroom for what felt (and probably was) the hundredth time.

Bed. Check.

Nightstand and lamp. Check.

Enormous bookshelves covering the walls. More books than he'd ever seen outside of his dad and Wes' office, let alone owned. Check. He'd even read them all, some multiple times.

He could remember all the words and recall them with ease. Some weren't even in English.

It scared him more than he could say so he continued his inventory.

Rug on the floor with his backpack in the corner near his chest of drawers that his television and various generations of Nintendo systems sat on. One of the controllers had come unfurled and fallen to the floor. The collection of DVDs and video games beside that. Check.

His desk with his laptop, printer, cassette tapes, and tape player. Check.

Band and movie posters covering nearly every inch of his walls not already hidden by shelves and books. Check.

It all meant nothing because it still didn't tell him anything about who or what he was.

Connor held in a sob and turned back to his dresser, seconds later slicing one of his wrists open only to watch his blood vessels and skin knit together with inhuman speed. Yesterday, he'd tried to break another bone (it would have only been his second, of course) on the skateboard now shoved out of sight underneath his bed.

That had been a failure, too. He'd been lectured for not wearing his helmet and pads at the skate park but he'd played his part, faking remorse when really it was only disappointment that his experiment in fatality had been a flaming failure.

Connor shivered, his eyes burning as he shut them against the tableau, not wanting to say it was real, but not wanting to call it a façade but knowing his life hadn't gone this way. Nothing had gone this way and he _knew_ it.

He also knew he wanted to die but what it'd probably take to do it. Angel -- Dad -- _he'd_ stopped Connor before he could, but Connor didn't even think he was wrong. Connor had intended to take so many people with him -- if his scythe wasn't buried, hidden in his closet and he didn't feel like he'd fall over if he stopped leaning on the dresser, he'd shove it into his stomach and save everyone the trouble.

That's all he knew he was anyway. Trouble.

"You're so wrong, baby, I've tried to tell you..."

Connor's head snapped up, his eyes wide, as his mother's shimmery form appeared in front of him, her hand immediately coming to cup his face and it was all Connor could do not to cry.

"You've tried to tell me so much, Mom, and...and what did I do? I ignored everything you said and killed her anyway -- for my own selfish -- "

"Shhh," Darla soothed, placing two fingers against his mouth even as he tried to hold back another sob. "It's okay, baby."

Connor's eyes widened, his incredulity at anything _ever_ being 'okay' again made plain and Darla sighed.

"Sweetheart, the fact that you even made a mistake, no matter what, only proves just how mortal you are. You don't need to die again."

"So she just gets to stay dead -- I...God, Mom, I can't stop thinking about her. I just...I killed her. She was just a girl, just trying to go home, and it's not like I don't know what that feels like. And I killed her. I just snatched her off the street, I almost couldn't help myself -- " Connor laughed emptily. "Not that the part of me that could have, would have. I didn't care. I just killed her. You asked me what my excuse was. I didn't have one. We both know that."

"The thing posing as your father's best friend and your aunt, the thing who used you so mercilessly, so carelessly, killed her. You were just the tool in her hand."

Connor turned away, facing the mirror again, this time his face deadened. His mother didn't have a reflection. Some part of him was surprised, but most wasn't -- couldn't be.

"I let myself be used. I let it happen."

Darla frowned, biting her lip before speaking again. "If you wanted to go that route, your father's the one who let it happen -- but, even then, he was used just as you were. Your whole family were used and discarded like so much trash. I'm the only one who escaped and that's only because I'm dead and no longer on this plane. Incorporeal beings, especially those of great power, they have to possess anything in order to do anything on Earth. They consider it a curse, you and all you know should consider it a blessing."

Connor turned back around, completely confused, but not a little appalled. "A blessing? How -- Mom, what are you even talking about?"

Darla sighed, "Ask your father about the Senior Partners. Ask him about the Review -- the night you were conceived, they had one. Ask him about the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. Ask him about the ring and the glove. Even ask him about that stupid elevator if you want. He owes you answers I can't give. Just know that you wouldn't be here if they could just do as they pleased."

Connor almost yelled, but managed to restrain himself, instead only snarling, "It's a blessing that I'm here? Somehow, Mom, I doubt the family of that girl would agree with you."

Connor flinched as he felt a distinct stinging sensation on his cheek as Darla lowered her hand, now gasping for something approaching breath. She was noticeably more transparent.

"Don't you dare say that the best thing that ever happened to me, the only good thing your father and I ever did together, was a mistake, a desecration. Don't. You. Dare. We love you more than it's possible for either of us to articulate. My only wish is that I could hug you, raise you as my own. Your father would give anything to do the same and we don't regret you for a second.

"There are _reasons_, there's meaning in your existence, in what's happened. Your regret will keep you from making the same mistakes, even if your father's forced to repeat his again and again and again. The only reason I cannot is because I'm dead. Do you want that sort of easy way out? Where death is the only thing keeping you in line? You think you don't deserve any better than that? I'll never be able to undo my greatest mistake and part of me doesn't want to because it would mean you wouldn't be here."

Connor's hand fell away from his stinging cheek as he forgot about it and stared at his mother in confusion. "What do you mean, your greatest mistake?"

Darla gave Connor a watery smile as tears fell down her cheeks. "I killed your father. He was right, you know. I didn't pay him any favors."

Darla gave a laugh he could feel laden with hundreds of years of regret, none moreso than for Angel. "I damned him."

Darla took a deep breath and gave another laugh as more tears fell. "You were the instrument that ended a girl's life, it's true, but she's not here to remind you of that fact every single day. You didn't personally give a monster the keys to someone and tell them to have a fun ride. Most of all, you had no pride in what you were doing. Just desperation and loneliness. I didn't care about anything except myself until you came along. Your father -- countless souls have paid the price for my failure."

Darla's eyes hardened and she became more solid once more. "And if I could be saved, even now -- when I still owe your father the apology of a lifetime? That girl's life is both everything and nothing at all. She's fine, her soul is spotless. It's the ones connected to me that aren't. You make sure to remember that, too, my love."

Darla looked as though she wanted to say something else, but hesitated and simply said, "I'm sorry. I should have tried harder to make you understand...I should have tried harder to resist them. I'm sorry."

Connor was wholly confused now, his earlier pain forgotten. He could see Darla beginning to fade away and quickly moved to stop her, but -- of course -- his hand slid through thin air.

Backing away from where she'd _stood_, Connor slid down the front of his dresser, trying to figure it out.

"What were you talking about, Mom?"

Connor was tempted to get up, find his cell phone somewhere in the jackets hanging on the back of his door, and call Angel to try and find out what the hell all that meant. Instead, he scowled and decided that it was better to get rid of his anger altogether than to obsess over something his mother had seen fit to share with him.

Besides, she'd at least given him something else to think about for his trouble.

END


	2. Novice

**Novice**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Whedon, et al. and Bellasario own everyone. Mention of a certain agent of allegedly ill-repute who I was glad shaved the last time I saw him. Anyway, _that one_ belongs to Chris Carter and the rest of ten-thirteen.

**Summary:** Yes, she fully admits that with behavior like that she'll be this smug herself someday. For now, she's just grateful it hasn't come yet and she waits.

**Notes:** This one was actually kind of fun. Hee.

Kate was so very tempted to put her feet up on the polished oak desk in front of her, it was almost an effort to keep both feet planted firmly on the floor. The entire office just yelled _smug_ at anyone unfortunate enough to be in this particular person's presence.

Kate sighed and equally resisted the urge to tip her head back and stare at the ceiling. She almost felt, just now, like Mulder in those old X-Files episodes where it was made clear that Mulder was 'the FBI's Most Unwanted' in the building.

She was used to that feeling, though, what with being her precinct's pariah first off and then being forced out altogether. She was absolutely astonished when the _FBI_ of all agencies had come personally knocking on her door and asking her, politely, which almost made her want to throw holy water on their faces, if they could come in, they had something to discuss with her.

It had been rainy, so she'd backed away from the door and given a vague affirmation of invitation, the stake in her sleeve at the ready regardless, and watched as the two suits crossed the threshold without any problem. Only then did she relax.

Slightly.

But it was the start of a long back and forth dialogue, she found out, one that got her out of the field office in Nyack and into Washington, D.C., of all places. And now she was waiting, which -- admittedly -- she was okay with. It gave her a chance to gather her thoughts and make sure her weaponry was in easy reach. She didn't know the demons in this town yet, after all, and while there most certainly were vampires, she didn't know what else was going on and couldn't exactly bring a flamethrower on what amounted to a job interview, in a way.

But now here she was, packed up and moved all the way down here, stopping only when she'd gotten a call from Connor that had caused her to nearly be rear-ended by her own moving van. She'd called everything to a halt for over half an hour as her savior's son relegated everything that had gone down in the previous twenty-four hours and asked her urgently if she'd been anywhere near a television set.

She unfortunately hadn't been, but the high-pitched, thunderous screech of some sort of demon or other large creature blasting into her ear startled her badly and forced her to pull over to the side of the road, her movers cursing vehemently as they passed her by before stopping themselves.

They would have reamed her out, she knew, if she hadn't flashed her badge at them and glared them into silence.

Yes, she fully admits that with behavior like that she'll be this smug herself someday. For now, she was just grateful it hadn't come yet and she waited.

The nameplate before her said, very clearly, **TOBIAS FORNELL** in large, obnoxious letters. Not even her old commanding officer had one like this, she recalled with a reluctant chuckle. She hoped he wasn't trying to compensate for something, but tried to rein herself in because it was useless to speculate until he showed up.

She was annoyed that he seemed to think it funny to make her wait, though. Whatever he was tangled up in better have been important as all hell. The longer she sat here, the longer it was until she'd be able to head to NCIS headquarters and see about Angel and Connor or Connor's foster family and that _did_ piss her off.

It was then that she heard the skipping of small feet through the doorway, followed by a set of larger ones and furious, one-sided bickering to go with them. A small girl's shoe started to skip into the office when a man's hand took hold of her shoulder and pulled her back.

Kate blinked a couple of times when she realized the girl's skin was a shade of blue she'd only seen in cotton candy -- or perhaps yogurt.

So, definitely at the right place, then.

The hand on her shoulder was the pale pink of a human with the broadness of a man's. So the girl was only half-whatever-demon, then. It certainly explained a lot.

"Diane, I'm trying to hurry this meeting up as fast as possible, but whether you like it or not, I _cannot_ take Emily right this very second. I honestly don't believe you when you say the International Watchers' Council couldn't have found any room at all for her, given the massive grounds they have, not to mention Slayers her own age to play with, but since you _insist_it can't be any other way, the least I can ask of you is to wait the thirty minutes it'll take to meet with this field agent from New York. It isn't as if she doesn't know anything, they sent her to _me_ for a reason. No, I'm not leaving her unattended the whole time -- David's quite happy to look after her -- you know perfectly well who he is, Diane, you've met him no less than six times. I have to go now and am hanging up, your untenable situation is in good hands so now you have nothing to complain about, goodbye."

With that, a human man around twenty years her senior -- or so he seemed, his face was so serious -- kept his hand on his daughter's shoulder as he forced her to enter his office alongside him and Kate watched as her skin tone changed to match his, the look on her face particularly disgruntled about that fact.

"Agent Tobias Fornell," he said firmly, his hand still on his daughter's shoulder.

Kate finally stood, resisting the urge to smile at the parental worry plain on his face. "Agent Katherine Lockley, but please call me Kate. Nobody calls me Katherine, nobody."

They shook hands and sat, Emily immediately going to dig around in her father's desk drawers, but he stopped her by slapping it shut and she gasped as her hands were nearly caught.

"I've warned you not to do that," he said, his tone again firm but gentle. For the first time since he sat down, Agent Fornell looked away from Kate and took in Emily's shocked face. "I told you the consequences might be dire, didn't I?"

Emily nodded, her eyes widening yet and still.

"What else have I told you?"

"The part about going to Agent Jethro if I need something or the part about remembering I'm just the same as everyone else, only special 'cause Mom and I aren't human?"

"Either or," Agent Fornell said lightly, cupping Emily's hands in his and glancing back at Kate to find her trying not to smile.

Agent Fornell raised an eyebrow, took a deep breath and only said, "You're without an office yet, aren't you, Agent?"

Kate nodded, resisting the urge to smile at Emily, who was starting to play with her father's fingers.

"Yes, sir. The Nyack office is sending over my things, but they won't be here for a few days."

Fornell nodded this time, a small smile coming to his face. "Until we get you an office of your own, you're free to use mine. Just as long as you don't mind things...being what they are."

"Things, sir?" Kate asked, hopefully hiding her confusion at his apparently deliberate wording.

"Emily," was all Agent Fornell said and the little girl grinned before scooting around to face Kate and her chair started to rise off the floor.

"Yes, things," Agent Fornell said, a slightly mischevious look on his face now that he could see that Kate was clutching her own chair for dear life. "That's enough, Emily."

Emily smiled and the chair fell slowly back down to earth before Kate felt herself taking a breath for the first time in what felt like several minutes.

"Scared?"

So he was challenging her and using his daughter's heritage to do it. Well, fine, then.

Kate leaned forward and whispered something she'd learned in the field. Suddenly, Agent Fornell's own chair tipped backward and he let out a loud exclamation of surprise but stopped when Kate quickly murmured something else and the back of his chair stopped within inches of the floor.

Emily was staring at _her_ now and Kate found the smugness infection had seemingly spread already.

Damn.

END


	3. Invitation

**Invitation**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Whedon, et al. and Bellasario own everyone.

**Summary:** "You're hurt, sir," he said instead, concern filling his voice and quieting it.

Angel seemed to want to sigh but was forced to stop when that sigh turned into him audibly holding back a pained noise. "Y-you wo-ouldn't be wrong."

**Notes:** Gee, I feel like I was putting together a puzzle and found that one missing piece out of, like, a thousand under the couch somewhere. And then I realized there were at least nine more and cursed myself diligently.

Invitation

Gibbs would later be glad he hadn't destroyed this particular cell phone yet.

The ringing had been just as annoying as usual, his eye twitching and his ears hurting at the surprising and incessant din. The vibration always made his skin burn, but everyone from DiNozzo to Abby insisted there was no way to turn that horrible function off. Damn it.

Just to keep the damned thing from torturing him any further, Gibbs snatched it out of his pocket and somehow managed not to drop it into the water around his boat.

"What?" he ground out, further pissed off that he hadn't figured out the whole thing everyone else did where they held the stupid things with their shoulders and continued what they were doing.

"Did I ever tell you your manners are atrocious, Jethro?"

Gibbs unconciously snapped to attention, this time automatically placing the fishing rod in his hand down and holding the phone with his previously occupied left hand as he frowned at the pain he could hear in Angel's voice.

"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

"You don't have to call me 'sir', son, I was never a Marine."

"You did serve the Navy, sir," Jethro reminded him, inwardly kicking himself because it wasn't like Angel had volunteered as he had. "Sorry, sir, you were consigned to the Navy, that's not the same."

"You act like you were the one who dragged me onto that U-Boat. You are technically right, though, I did serve the Navy -- just not of my own free will. Your grandfather was consigned, as well, it's not exactly new."

Gibbs managed not to make a face at this mention of Angel's father despite the fact that Angel couldn't see him.

"You're hurt, sir," he said instead, concern filling his voice and quieting it.

Angel seemed to want to sigh but was forced to stop when that sigh turned into him audibly holding back a pained noise. "Y-you wo-ouldn't be wrong."

Gibbs forced himself to ignore the weals of fire that licked through him at the very sound and said in a remarkably steady voice, "You need me to come out there? Bring my team?"

"No, no -- the fireworks show is over. For now, anyway, I guess. Besides, this isn't -- wasn't a human fight. Well, I mean, all -- a lot of the humans who went into it didn't make it out."

Angel's voice was audibly deadened now and Gibbs felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as Angel continued, forcing himself to speak in his normal tone. Almost. "I managed to convince Spike to get me a cell phone from somewhere. I'm fairly certain its owner is dead."

"What the hell happened, sir?"

"Jethro."

"Angel, please," Gibbs was getting desperate, his chest tightening and causing tiny wheezing sounds to expel with every breath.

"Okay, first I need you to sit down, son. Please breathe, I'll be alright."

But Gibbs could hear Angel's voice fading in increments as he continued to talk without breath himself. He was weak. Very weak.

"With all due respect, sir, that's bullshit. You're hurt bad."

"Sit down or you won't hear a damned thing, Leroy Jethro Gibbs."

Gibbs straightened again before automatically folding into a crouched position on the bench he'd been standing in front of before.

"I'm sitting sir, as God as my witness. Please. Please tell me what happened."

"We burned the house down while we were still in it," Angel said cryptically, but Gibbs simply let it go and decided that meant everything had gone into that literal hellhole Angel had holed himself up in the previous year for his little brother's sake. "Needless to say, it came down around us."

Gibbs reached up, pinching his nose and then turning to put his fishing gear away. It was getting to be dawn anyway and anything else to be caught was going to have to wait for another weekend. He secured the latch on the cooler tonight's catch was now stored in and stilled again.

"You need anything?" Everything inside him was hoping against hope that his father wouldn't refuse to ask his help if he truly needed it.

"I -- uh, well, actually, the International Watcher's Council, that is the ICW -- er..."

"My stepmother's crew finally remembered which side you were on and decided you could use some assistance."

"Leroy." Angel's tone was cold and authoritative just now and Gibbs held back a sigh.

"I just don't appreciate how she stole that Slayer out from under you after you went through all that trouble."

"I don't know how you found out about that."

"Wesley actually knows how to use a telephone, sir," Gibbs needled, still irritated but trying to keep himself in line.

Angel was silent for a few moments and then said, "Wes is dead, Jethro."

Gibbs' heart skipped a beat and he gasped, hearing again the abject pain in his father's voice. "I..."

He hadn't been rendered speechless in a long time. He hated it. He wished he could be here, that Angel could be there, so he could hold his father's hand and help him bury his best friend. A dozen prayers in even more languages flitted through his head, but nothing would come out of his mouth.

"It's just what -- nobody expected to make it out of this alive. It's certainly nothing you should blame yourself for. Everyone else made it out -- through...I don't know. Maybe I shifted the balance of power when I drank Marcus' blood, I don't know. I broke his neck after that. That's when everything started to fall apart in the building anyway -- Eve refused to come out."

Angel muffled another moan, but insisted on continuing. "I'm pretty sure she's been crushed and, if not, the building spared her or something. Nobody else was there except for them and I. I told Harmony to get the hell out and everyone else had their assignments. Apparently they..."

Angel started to run out of air again and Gibbs ran his hand over his NCIS cap, pushing it off. He heard it land in the water and didn't care. He'd get another one. He couldn't get another father and hearing all this drove that point back home hard.

"I think...I think it m-might be easier just to list the dead. I told Connor to get out but he's so damned stubborn."

This, Gibbs was forced to laugh at despite the heavy weight sitting inside him. "Yeah, can't imagine where he got that from, huh?"

Angel laughed, just a bit, but it was enough for now.

"He's okay. He -- uh, the Reillys demanded Spike and I come stay in their guest room. Gunn's staying with a friend at her shelter. He's decided to hold out with her with the kids she takes care of until the police or National Guard or whoever removes them. He keeps complaining that it was brand new and they didn't even get to use it. To hell with his eye, though.

"I think Illyria's in the basement or something. Connor spars with her so she doesn't start trying to destroy the house, but we've got to leave anyway. Napa's not exactly a small wine-making town anymore because everyone's starting to flood the smaller cities and towns. You already know Sunnydale's a sinkhole, but L.A.'s literally burning to the ground.

"They did stop people from building tent cities around the _lake_ where Sunnydale was, though. The -- I don't know, the government's issued something about everyone getting out before the fumes overwhelm everyone and the humans all die. Apparently, it's not optional."

Gibbs had to suppress a small smile at Angel's obvious resentment of the edict. He knows that if he had a choice, Angel would be right back in L.A. as soon as the smoke cleared. It was his territory and he needed to do what he did best.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that if everyone gets out there won't be anyone left to protect." _Please come here, Pop. Please..._

Angel sighed heavily, hitching several times in the middle, and Gibbs ran a hand over his face, desperate to keep from asking, which would definitely put Angel off the idea altogether.

There was a very long pause and Gibbs found himself holding his breath, his eyes staring out into the now lightening sky around him. It was empty.

"Uh, um...son. I...I really hate to ask this, but how much spare room have you got?"

Gibbs was hard-pressed not to cheer aloud but didn't stop himself from grinning madly as he reminded Angel, "You know perfectly well how much room I've got. Bring whoever you need to."

"If I didn't know any better I'd say you were happy." Angel said hoarsely and Gibbs shook his head despite the fact that Angel couldn't see him.

"Not happy, sir. Just content."

END


	4. Disagreement

**Disagreement**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** All hail -- no, just kidding. Anyway, Mutant Enemy and all that that entails own these characters. I'm just borrowing them for a while. The Decemberists. "The Bachelor and the Bride.". Hush, Rough Trade, 2003. "The Sixth Extinction." Carter. Kim Manners. The X-Files. FOX. WJBK, Detroit. November 7, 1999.

Um. Do I even need to cite George Lucas or _Star Wars_ at this point? Just curious.

**Summary:** He'd never made Buffy cry before, that he knew. That was like a punch in the gut from every Slayer in the ICW at least twice over.

But the scariest part was that Buffy's tears had taken on a...a strange...dear God, was that _blood?_

**Notes:** So **adoxerella** and I had a little chat and this came out of it. Then she pointed out some stuff I missed while unable to stomach the last two seasons of Buffy until now, so I revised (like all great writers do). Raise your hand if you recognize that paraquote, there.

Salient point: it turns out I had some stuff to get off my chest that I hadn't even thought about in quite a while. So be it.

A lyric from My Chemical Romance's album, _The Black Parade_, occurred to me while writing this because of a sentence I incidentally wrote, but that was a complete accident. There's also an ode to Joss' description of BtVS as a blend between The X-Files and My So-Called Life (Rawson-Jones, Ben. "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". BBC. Retrieved August 1, 2009.).

**Further Notes:** I have not read a single issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Eight, and this wouldn't be reflected in it anyway, since the main focus is meant to be on Angel Investigations and NCIS. However, since Buffy characters may be named and this is, in fact, a parallel series, I'm taking advantage of that rule not applying and getting some (more) things off my chest.

**Further, further notes:** I'm actually listening to Weezer's mystical 'Pinkerton' album just this very moment. Sit back, marvel -- behold...I'll probably listen to more Decemberists before it's over. *almost smiles* ...Aha! *listening to 'Her Majesty' now, quite incidentally because I became distracted, but anyway...*

**Warning:** I don't enjoy character bashing, can't stand it, refuse to do it. Another thing I refuse to do, however, is gloss over their faults and just pretend everything about them is all fantastic and yay. So, if you think Xander should be crowned King of the Universe, this story isn't for you.

Disagreement

"I can't believe you'd just ask -- you'd let them, you'd let him have international clearance to go wherever he wants when he's been sitting in the middle of an evil theme park having the time of -- "

Buffy turned and narrowed her eyes at Xander, who found himself blinking and even after all this time being her bestest Xander-shaped friend, wanting to back away from The Slayer and...possibly hide somewhere?

Yes, she was balling her fists now and that never boded well for whomever was on the other side of them and he was backing up again, but she gave her head a tiny shake and he stopped.

When the hell did that happen, that Buff would get so...holy crap, he couldn't even form a coherent sentence right now.

"Xander. I've told you once, I'll tell you one more time and you'd better make it stick this time because after that stunt you and Giles pulled with Dana you're both lucky you have all your teeth."

Xander opened his mouth to object but Buffy stepped forward and he froze in...holy crap, was he terrified of his best friend?

Yes. Yes, he was. So he shut up.

"First of all, I will again tell you that I do not, have not ever, will not ever have to answer to you. You are not my mother, you're not even my sixteenth-assed rate excuse for a father. You are -- well, you're supposed to be my equal. But the second you took a look at Angel, all you saw was a rival for my affections and it's been that way for you ever since. Even Willow's fury at you for _lying_ to me and using her to do it hasn't driven that into your brain. She's not talking to you, but oh, well!"

Buffy turned away from Xander in the hope that not looking at his face anymore would make her want to punch him less. It worked. Marginally.

"But then, just when I thought maybe you'd grown up with the rest of us -- maybe when I thought Giles had remembered what the word 'forgive' meant, you two turn around and send _Andrew_ to completely subvert Angel's authority over a Slayer he and his crew went through absolute hell to recover safely, you did it in _my name_. And then you expected me to be okay with it."

Before she could help herself, Buffy turned back around. "Even _Andrew's_ angry at being used like that and he's about as violent as a freaking newborn puppy! Dawn's angry because she's always, always adored Angel -- not that you've ever cared.

"If Faith were anywhere near either you or Giles right now, we'd be obligated to put her back in prison and this time she'd have to stay. You lied to them all and to me and you did it in _MY NAME_. To my -- "

Before Xander, himself, could help it, he snapped, "Oh, you're about to call Deadboy your 'husband'? Well, the last time I checked, it wasn't legal -- you were seventeen, and he's _dead_ -- you can't marry a dead guy and he didn't even -- "

Buffy's hand was clutching his shirt (he was later privately very grateful it hadn't been his throat Buffy had ensnared so hard, having bruises from even that small amount of contact), her arm outstretched as she held him almost a foot above the ground and more than as much above her own head.

"Do not ever speak about Angel that way again, do you understand, Harris?" Buffy asked and Xander's eyes widened in confusion as well as anger. "I'm tired of that idiotic name -- you don't even call _Spike_ that and they're_both_ vampires or have you forgotten?"

"Harris? H-H-Harris? That -- you -- a _vampire_ means more to you than I do? I can't believe -- "

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him again, reaching with her other hand into her shirt and removing the thin chain she kept her Claddagh ring on, snapping it with ease and tossing Xander to the ground, where he landed hard, before slipping it onto her left hand with the heart facing inward.

Xander struggled to scramble to his feet, but couldn't seem to find purchase on the slippery floor. Buffy ignored him for a moment, reaching up to softly touch Angel's mark on her throat, a soft hum sliding over her body as she did. Something was happening to him, she could feel it. She needed to make a few calls, but Xander, unfortunately, was her first priority.

"He means more to me if you've lied to me more often than he ever has out of sheer petty jealousy."

And here Buffy realized her eyes were beginning to become blurry. "He means more to me if you've gone behind my back to one-up him in some ridiculous pissing contest that he had no desire to ever take part in. You _do_mean everything to me in the best friend department, Xander, just like you do to Willow but neither of us..._neither of us_ appreciate being lied to again and again and again, and for what? For what, Xander? Tell me that."

Xander had stopped struggling by now, staring upward at the tears that now streamed down Buffy's face, his eyes wide.

He'd never made Buffy cry before, that he knew. That was like a punch in the gut from every Slayer in the ICW at least twice over.

But the scariest part was that Buffy's tears had taken on a...a strange...dear God, was that _blood?_

Buffy took a deep, shuddering breath, wiping her eyes and staring at her stained hand before she gave a laugh so saddening Xander had to struggle not to do so, himself.

"If you want the answer to your questions, Xand," Buffy said softly, lowering herself into a crouch, her red-rimmed, still-leaking eyes now level with his. "I'll do it. First of all, if it weren't for the fact that Angel's no longer in Los Angeles, I'd have Dana removed from her containment -- which, oddly enough, could have been done at Wolfram and Hart for all the good that it's done here -- and returned to Angel and Wes, though I suppose it'd be rather difficult to impose that sort of surprise on one of Angel's children. 'Inconsideration', I believe it's called."

Buffy took a deep breath, again wiping her eyes, inwardly marveling that they weren't burning by now. "As for the fact that Angel even _has_ children -- well, we all know by now that whatever the Powers feel like doing, they'll do whether anyone down here likes it or not. Why should that not count? It doesn't matter that they're not biologically mine. They're Angel's and that's all that matters to me. What would you have me do? Sit back and order the _Council's_ assassins to slaughter them all?"

Buffy gave a deadened laugh and Xander hoped never to hear it again.

"I thought we were going to be better than that, Xander?"

"Buff -- "

"Don't. Don't call me that while I can't trust you." Buffy's voice was razor sharp now, her face paling dramatically as her fists balled again by her side. "My _friends_ don't do these things to me. My _friends_ look out for me before their own selfish desires. Or at least they try to. Have you forgotten that Doyle, Cordelia -- "

Here Xander flinched, but Buffy ignored it, her eyes trained on her own bloodstained hands. "Wes, though he and Spike each aren't dead anymore, thank God -- and _Fred_ -- we may not have known her, but Spike, Angel -- Spike says Wes can barely even say her name, he's in so much pain...they've all died trying to help Angel. And, true to Angel's form, we wouldn't have known a thing about it if Dawn or Willow didn't know how to pick up a telephone and _call_ before deciding someone's gone to the Dark Side of the Force.

"And Angel tried to die so that he could give their lives meaning. He tried to make things even, to take at least one thorn out of our sides. Yes, Xander, that includes yours. And you would repay him by doing just what you've always done. You've never learned a goddamned thing. The point, Xander, is that it's _not about us._ It _never was_."

Buffy stood, walked closer to Xander, then returned to a crouch. "There are things I'd love to know about _my husband_. Everything. I'd love him to know everything about me. But you know what? That's impossible. I may not have lived a fraction of the time he has, but he still doesn't know everything about me. And unlike you, my -- what's a good word, I've been doing a lot of reading lately, after all -- _erstwhile_ friend, one of the things that makes us, gives us the connection we have, is that we're okay with that.

"We may belong to one another, but we both understand that we belong far more to the world. I would have been furious with Angel, once upon a time, to find out what I know now, but my energy is just so much better spent elsewhere, doing better things. It hurts, what I've been shown. It always will. But I remember the look on his face, too. Like his heart had been torn out.

"I don't recall you ever looking that way for me, but -- again -- it's okay. It's part of what helped me grow up. He tried to save my life that day and while he may have failed, the fact that he tried that damned hard, the knowledge that he bought me whatever time he did, means more to me than I can say."

Buffy reached out and picked up Xander's hand, causing his elbow to hit the ground painfully, but Xander didn't dare say anything. "What was it you told him? 'At the end of the day, I think you're pretty much a vampire.'"

Xander's eyes widened even further, now afraid Buffy was going to break his wrist. "Buffy, please..."

She ignored him. "One day, I'll forgive you. Part of me already has. I heard in a movie -- or was it a TV show? 'The part that played the hero.' Ironically, that same guy said 'aren't you expecting me to sprout vampire fangs?' Oddly enough, no, I wasn't.

"I was kind of fascinated by the guy. Why'd his own son -- though, to be fair, the guy dying didn't actually know it until the older guy told him -- hate him so much? Why'd he go through so much trouble to _make_ his son hate him when it was so obvious he loved the guy? The son, I mean."

Then Buffy took a deep breath. "But that's it...he loved the guy, he loved his son. Do you love me, Xander? Or do you just _want_ me so you can say you've got me, have me? Am I just a trophy to you?"

Xander's mouth dropped open, "Why don't you ask D-Angel that? What makes you think he's never though that, huh?"

Buffy gave a tortured laugh and again Xander was horrified into silence. "I know he _has_ thought just that. That side of him is called Angelus, you may have heard of him."

Xander wanted to call attention to the hurtful way Buffy flippantly referred to how Angel had terrorized them all for months, supposedly in _her_ name, then, since she wanted to make such a big deal about that. Wanted to ask her why _she_ would do such a thing. But Buffy's next words stopped him cold.

"But he's not human, Xander. What's your excuse?"

Xander stared at Buffy for a moment, his mouth hanging open, at a loss for anything to say. Then he forced himself to sit up, splaying his hands behind himself so he wouldn't slip again. "You know, sometimes I get the feeling you'd be happier if he never had been in the first place, that you weren't now -- that you'd never been."

Buffy glanced down at her shoes and the floor underneath them both, now visibly shaking, and Xander was afraid he'd finally gone too far.

Finally Buffy looked up and her face was awash with tears. "What makes you think I am? That I ever was? That any of these girls here are or have been?"

Xander began sputtering, trying to object, but Buffy held up a hand, tears still sliding down and splashing onto the floor.

"I'm part demon, Xander. How do you think I do the things I do, heal like I do? I may -- we may have needed to be 'activated' -- " and here Buffy made a disgusted face before it fell into sadness again. "But I'm not completely human. So how do you feel about me now, Mr. I Don't Like to Admit That I Ate an Innocent Pig Alive?"

Xander's breath caught in his throat, but Buffy only continued.

"You don't really like to accept those parts of others, I've noticed. God only knows what you'd make of my stepchildren or my step-_grandchildren_. Say nothing of Leroy's _wife and daughter_, though they were actually balancing demons. A lot of those in Angel's life. Hah."

Buffy gave a bitter smile now, tilting her head to the side and studying Xander in a way that made his skin crawl.

"What if I told you that, as it turns out, Slayers can't mate with humans? Activated ones, I mean. Well, actually, it seems we can't mate with _anyone_, same as vampires. Something about alterations to our DNA, as Giles oh-so-regretfully put it. It seems we're only capable of doing so as Potentials and even then -- not with humans. It's astonishing.

"Giles almost fell out of his chair when he found it. He still can't look at me, even after apologizing a gajillion times, for everything -- like all of it was his fault. The research was done over centuries, apparently. The Watcher's Council and the Demon Research Initiative, later on -- you know how they were all about hiding things. More control for them, I suppose."

Here, Buffy rolled her eyes. "There's only been four recorded instances of a Potential mating in history and most of them were apparently hard as hell to get, given the location of the _family_ involved and the crap that was going on at the time -- is _still_ going on, actually.

"The majority didn't have Watchers, of course, what with never being Called. But they did have children. Two daughters and a son -- Angel's son Sam's children with three different Potentials, though, apparently, he appeared to have genuinely loved one of them, from the look of things. But the point is that they had a son. Rather like our buddy, Robin, and his mother, Nikki...Imagine that..."

Xander felt like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He felt like he was going to puke. But -- of course, Buffy wasn't finished.

No, she instead examined her nails like they were just talking about movies or something.

"And you know who the catalyst for all this seemed to have been? The one vampire who turned the Order of Aurelius into the only line of vampires in all of time and Creation to ever love and procreate? The one vampire who's ever gone out of his way to help the human race or to make sure the helpless didn't fall through the cracks? The one vampire you've made fun of, openly wished dusted, would leave for someone to do so if given the chance.

"Before Angel, vampires simply didn't -- there weren't any..."

Buffy took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, another bloody tear falling. "They just didn't have the capacity to care, much less love, marry, all that. Believe me, the Watcher's Council and the Demon Research Initiative both spent tons of time and effort trying to make one of their 'Super-Slayer' or whatever prototypes and never got it. And at least twenty Slayers perished from that alone. Oh well, I guess."

"Buffy, please -- please stop," Xander moaned, pressing his hands over his ears now. "I don't want to hear anymore."

He didn't need to look at Buffy's face to know she had no mercy for him.

Buffy's voice was dark and angry as she suddenly brushed by him. "Of course you don't."

_...I will box your ears and take your tears and leave you here, stripped bare..._

END


	5. Fodder

**Fodder**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Mutant Enemy and all involved are the geniuses behind these characters. I just borrow them at times to manipulate them much like action figures before returning them slightly abused but generally in good shape.

Ah, yes, and DC Comics owns Batman and everyone in that particular world of madness, since it's not even clear who actually has ownership anymore. *sighs and rolls eyes* -- Never mind. Thank you, **adoxerella** for clearing that up for me, not to mention beta'ing the hell out of this for me to meet the very, very exacting standards of a certain site that can only be linked to until more NCIS-ish material is written...

**Summary:** "He was trying to protect you from -- "

"His dark side?"

Xander's head whipped up before he could stop it and only now could he see Willow was crying, despite her astonishingly calm voice.

"Gee, wonder what that's like."

**Notes:** This actually takes place after another story that I wrote but didn't cross-post everywhere. Also, I can't stand Kennedy. So she and Willow have broken up. There be it. *resolute*

**Further Notes:** You know. I think I might be writing a crossover, crossover. I mean, I guess Buffy and ANGEL don't count at TtH, but everything's bleeding between the two of them and ANGEL's already now set firmly within NCIS. So. BtVS/AtS/NCIS crossover, ahoy!

Fodder

"If you wanted to know I was going to help them, or that Faith is going to, then maybe you and Giles shouldn't have gone behind my back. Sharing is caring, after all."

Willow glared upward at Xander, gratified that he paled visibly. "Maybe you shouldn't have said something so horrible as _kick his ass_ and attach my name to it. Maybe you should consider someone else once in a while, Xander."

"I was considering _everyone_ else!" Xander cried, flinging his arms outward, angry that everyone kept bringing that up over and over again _now_ after everything, but flinching when his bruised elbows and strained arms protested immediately.

"No. No, you really weren't," Willow said without looking up from what she was mixing in a bowl with a pestle. Xander didn't even bother trying to ask her what she was doing. He already knew he didn't want to find out.

"I almost wonder if you even know what love is sometimes, Xander. I mean, your parents were a horrible example, after all -- not that mine were much better. They would have had to have been there for me to really learn from them, after all. I really wonder sometimes how I lucked out, but I know how. You, Buffy, and Giles -- you guys saved me."

Willow sniffled then, struggling not to look at him, still, "I...I just wish I could have done the same for you and Giles..."

Xander's remaining eye bulged out and he threw himself forward onto the grassy knoll where he'd found Willow working on some kind of spell and his voice caught in his throat before he forced it out, a hoarse parody of it issuing instead.

"I -- have you even forgotten that -- that the love of my life -- she never made it out of that...she..." Xander shoved himself back and pressed his hands through his hair and dragged them down over his face, his left hand catching on his eye patch as tears he wanted desperately to go away began to slide against his skin despite his meager defenses. "She...d-died and you -- you have the nerve to -- "

Willow glanced up at him then, giving her head a short shake and frowning. "I haven't forgotten at all. It's the only reason I know you understand true affection; it's not like your family taught it to you."

Giving up for the very tiniest moment, Willow put her tools down and turned away from him. "iYou/i have a lot of nerve, Xander," Willow said coldly, her voice sharp and very nearly pitiless as she forced herself not to look back at where she knew he was sitting behind of her, crying. "You're not the only one who's ever watched someone you loved die, Xander. Or simply have them disappear, never to be seen again.

"To go through that with Anya, everything with her -- and never care to remember that she was a demon, that she loved her powers and relished getting them back, using them to harm humans and other demons alike without a shred of remorse. It was simply who and what she was. Vengeance. She recounted her exploits with utter passivity, sometimes outright glee, and in _excruciating_ detail if you recall, as I do."

Xander was staring speechlessly at her now, Willow could feel, but she still didn't look, instead reaching around for more hemlock and her bowl and pestle before crushing it into the already fine powder in the bowl in front of her.

"You could conveniently forget everything that Anya was, had been, would be at the drop of a hat when it was _her_that _you_ loved -- but Angel? No such luck. And now I guess you're going to hurl Buffy under the bus, too -- and me and Faith, since we're going to help them come to terms with what's happening. We refuse to do that to Angel, for everyone around him, because _you_ don't like him."

Willow looked back at Xander for the first time and he found that it was with a terrible mixture of misery and near-hatred on her face. "You and Giles _hate_ him -- though Giles, at least, has a better reason, he's supposed to be an adult. I guess it's like head trauma. Makes you forget really simple stuff if it's horrible enough."

Xander couldn't believe what Willow was saying, how she could even...

"How can you _say_ that? Angel killed his -- Angel _killed_ Ms. Calendar! Left her body where -- "

He was further shocked when Willow's response was to meet him with her Resolve Face. "_Angelus_ killed Ms. Calendar. And even Giles at least admits now that his view is extremely skewed when it comes to Angel and that he shouldn't be trusted with decisions that involve Angel in any way. You won't even do that much. You don't think you have a problem."

Xander made a face, affronted and disgusted at the same time. "I _don't_ have a problem! I don't _have_ a problem! It's like -- like you've all drunk the Angel Kool-Aid and -- "

Willow merely rolled her eyes before shifting yet again and meeting Xander's face dead-on. "Spike nearly raped Buffy. This was after they had been _mating_ for months, drowning in each other's sorrows -- Spike _still_ angry because Dru had left him so long before and demons can't just get over an entire piece of their essence ripping itself out of them and Buffy -- well, duh.

"Why is it that doesn't bother you nearly as much as the idea that Buffy and Angel actually were _married and made love_ the night the Judge was assembled?"

Xander didn't bother to answer, knowing Willow would continue whether he did or not.

"Because you know that if it had been with you, it would have just been this awkward, one-time crazy mistake that neither of you would want to repeat? Because she was -- _is_ the one thing in the universe that would bring forth Angelus because she makes Angel truly happy and you know you don't do the same for her? Angelus made all the threats in the world, but in the end he couldn't do it. He could go after all of us, but to him, Buffy's untouchable -- "

Xander stared at his best friend -- or the android who'd taken over her body just like another had snatched Buffy's, "Oh, and I suppose that's just _fine_ -- "

"Are you intentionally missing my point or just being stupid?"

Xander froze, his heart skipping a beat at Willow's once more frigid tone, let alone her completely flat expression, but she ignored his flinch and kept going. "Master vampires have to be truly desperate, truly insane with some sort of desire to _not exist_ in order to open the mouth of Acathla. Angel and even Angelus have both been suicidal for years now.

"I don't personally know what's kept Angel here, but I _do_ know it was Buffy that was his breaking point."

She sighed then, wanting so badly to take his hand, but unable to because that would give him the false impression that what he had continually done could be, would be easily forgiven.

"Imagine for a moment, Xander, if Anya were a ghost and she was here following you around and you knew you wanted her but couldn't do a thing about it. Imagine there was a way, but to do so would destroy you, kind of defeating the point? Would you do it anyway?"

Xander's eyes shot downward, his voice caught in his throat, as more tears surged forward and his eyes burned so that he couldn't see. He wanted to say something, anything in the negative. But the words wouldn't come. And Willow kept going, regardless.

"I haven't even gone into how amazingly fair you were to Oz despite his being a werewolf and perfectly able to rip all our throats out if not properly secured, or the fact that he loved me, still did so even as he could kill me in my sleep with one swipe of his claws. Once upon a time you and I swore we loved one another and were going to get married..."

"We were _five_, Willow!" Xander bit out derisively, swiping his sleeve across his face. "And Oz was different -- "

"Like Spike was somehow different," Willow said exasperatedly and Xander could tell she was rolling her eyes again. "Except for where he wasn't. And you know what? He broke my heart, too. Daniel Osbourne broke my heart, but I don't see you rushing off with silver bullets, hunting him down and mounting his pelt on your wall."

"He was trying to protect you from -- "

"His dark side?"

Xander's head whipped up before he could stop it and only now could he see Willow was crying, despite her astonishingly calm voice.

"Gee, wonder what that's like."

Xander tried to say something, but Willow held up a hand, silencing him as effectively as a spell. "I'm Oz's mate. I know that, he knows that. But we're not together. The difference is that I can try to love others and actually succeed."

Willow's Resolve Face had by no means disappeared. This time she frowned deeply, placing her implements in her lap and carefully leaning back on her hands before staring up at the sky, "Angel, Buffy, Oz, Spike -- Goddess only knows how many there've actually been -- creatures of light and/or shadow who've found one another and then were ripped apart by _something_, anything -- even just themselves...and sooner or later they've died for that lack."

Willow took a deep breath, finally putting down the bowl and pestle, wrapping her own arms around her knees as she fought the urge to cry, herself. Xander watched her, unable to master himself enough to figure out whether he wanted to comfort her or revel in the fact that finally someone felt like he did.

"Even I feel it to an extent because Tara and I actually shared a different version of the bond I had with Oz. I'll never get over either of them and I've learned to live with that. I _can_ live with that. I have the human ability to evolve my emotions and allow them to grow past the pain.

"Oz, Angel, and Spike all lost theirs -- if Angel ever had it, really -- and Buffy -- and Jordy, once he fully matures -- will realize they never had it to begin with. I can't even begin to imagine the despair and trauma they live with every day."

Willow ignored Xander's expressed confusion as well as that same lingering disgust, and sprinkled the dried ox blood over the mixture and began to pound it in, inwardly relieved to finally be finished and have a reason to halt this futile gesture. Still, she at least had to try. She owed both Buffy and Angel that much.

"I believe the result we all had to live with for so long afterward we now call _Pod Buffy_?"

Xander's mouth fell open, his eyes widening again, his fingers digging into the grass. "But -- but Riley -- "

"Couldn't even tell it was Faith he was sleeping with when she stole Buffy's body. Angel would have been able to tell in an instant. She could pretend all she wanted, but Buffy was devastated that he never knew her body -- but, then, she was also gratified because she knew it meant that yet and still no one had taken Angel's place, no matter what hurtful words she said just to try to get him to feel what she did. She didn't realize he already knew. He told her in no uncertain terms, Buffy assured me.

"She must have been so confused. Angel's had time, a lot of time, to come to terms with everything he experiences with a mate. Buffy hasn't. As a rule, Slayers tend not to.

"I remember how she cried as I held her -- this same dissicated version of my best friend who was so empty inside she couldn't even tell that I'd fallen in love with another woman. She'd done the same for me when Oz left, after all. It's what best friends do. And, as you remember, Riley was so jealous of what Buffy was, what Angel was to her that he -- "

"Willow, please," Xander interrupted again, throwing both his hands up as if to shield himself from her very words. "You don't have to remind me."

Willow gave a sigh and began putting away her tools and the finally finished product, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt up and brushing off her skirt before she finally stood and, to Xander's surprise, reached out a hand to help him to his feet.

"Then why do we keep having to remind you of everything else, Xander?" Willow frowned, giving him a poke in the chest. "It's getting tiresome."

With that, Xander watched morosely as Willow turned and began to walk away, inwardly debating with himself for a moment before giving up and following her.

***

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't kick your ass into next week," Faith snarled, having leapt to her feet the moment Willow and a slower Xander had entered the ICW's massive library, and Xander could have sworn he'd gotten used to the antagonism eventually but apparently he was wrong.

Dawn and Andrew had each communicated their own feelings on the matter by abruptly abandoning whatever research they'd been doing and simply leaving without a word nor a glance in Xander's direction.

Giles had made no move to stop them and instead had retreated silently into the stacks, his face pale, his hair surprisingly thinner and greyer over the past few days since Xander had last actually spoken to him.

"I don't have one," he finally said, his voice completely empty at this point. "You're all going to do what you want, for Angel, regardless of -- and probably because -- of my feelings. After all, even Giles has washed his hands of this whole thing, and the only one who agrees with me in any way is Robin and that's only because of how he was raised. No telling how he'd feel if he'd been given a 'normal' life, but it's pretty obvious by now what the rest of you think."

And here Xander finally let some of his bitterness show, putting finger quotations around the word 'normal' and scowling for all he was worth before letting his face drop into blankness once more.

"It doesn't even matter if I protest. You'll probably have put some kind of itching spell over my bedsheets or something, just to _start_ with, but -- oh, right -- you guys are all _way more_ grown up than I am."

Xander was on the ground before he knew what was happening, a horrible pain blossoming in his stomach as he found himself curling inward, groaning, and struggling not to vomit.

Amazingly, when he looked upward, it was Willow who was standing over him, retracting a small ball of energy back into her hand and holding it there, true anger showing on her face for the first time since they'd begun speaking however many minutes (or was it hours?) ago.

"I had to tell him she was dead, Xander," Willow bit out, a sob barely restrained as tears spilled out once more, though her voice was again unnaturally steady. "I had to tell Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley that Buffy was dead."

Another blossom of fire grew in Willow's palm and Xander flinched and curled tighter, but Willow didn't fire it at him. He could hear the pain in her voice and it hurt far worse than the spell had or would. He supposed it was a good thing they could still make him feel this way because it meant he was still human and not like -- oh, God, not like what? He was getting so confused.

"I had to follow Angel up to his room and magickally keep him from slamming the door in my face before he tried to break everything in sight. I had to weave as many spells together as I could and it still didn't matter because by the end of it, the only thing completely broken in the room was _him_.

"Cordy was crying her eyes out while Wes held her and even he was trying to keep it together, but I could see he was only going to make it a little while longer. I had to levitate Angel back downstairs and keep him in stasis while their friend Gunn -- Charles, who didn't even know what was really going on, and I splinted and bandaged him or he would have run out into the _really sunny_ street and killed himself. I had to stay there and force blood down his throat again and again because he kept throwing it all back up -- I remember how hard he cried. He didn't care that we were all watching. He...he thought he was dying, just then..."

Xander let himself uncurl and lay on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling past everyone else. "Willow, I said -- "

"I think we've all heard what you said, asshole," Faith snapped from her stance now leaning over him, somehow managing to refrain from kicking his side while she had the chance. "Shut the fuck up."

"Faith, please, unfortunately you're diluting my point. Xander. You think you've been getting compared to Angel all this time, that he somehow renders you useless and incompetent," Willow sniffled, finally wiping her eyes again on her sleeve before pushing it back up to free her hand.

"You think he's the Batman to your Robin, somehow, and that our Catwoman didn't need you in any way. Jackass, Robin came into his own and, anyway, you're our Nightwing -- but you obviously didn't realize that. And if anything we're Young Justice -- or we were and will someone shut me up because I'm _pissed off_ and -- "

Faith clapped a hand over Willow's mouth and Xander frowned because even that was usually his job.

"No kidding, Willow. I'm the only reason you know about any of that in the first place," Xander snapped, finally pushing himself to his feet and shoving his hands into his pockets. His cheeks were burning, but he refused to give any of them the satisfaction of admitting he was giving any of it real credence.

"Nobody's been comparing you to Angel, dumbass," Faith said harshly, though she didn't try to hurt him again. "Not everything is about you. Sometimes it's about a friend and the pain they're in and trying to make it better however you can. Five bucks says you already know who taught me that, dumbfuck."

This time, it was Willow who clapped a hand over Faith's mouth, favoring her with a look of silent, exasperated reprimand that everyone knew was mostly ignored. Faith had made her point and that's all she cared about.

Xander was staring at them both, indignant now. "I don't think everything's about -- "

"You were angry that Cordy was ignoring you all the time, so you kissed me," Willow corrected, actually managing not to blush. "I'd had a crush on you for so long that I kissed back, but we both knew it was wrong and you started it anyway even though you knew I loved Oz. Maybe because you didn't have a stranglehold on my heart anymore, I don't know."

"B loved Angel and advertised it all over the place," Faith continued, taking the finished paste Willow was now handing her and refusing to spare Xander another glance, though she kept speaking to him. "Even before they were a real couple, Will says you were jealous as all hell just because they happened to be in the same room together."

"She was sixteen and he was sleeping on her floor!" Xander protested but Faith snorted.

"Floor?" And here she snorted. "To hell with that, if it'd been me, he'd've been in my bed, pronto. _Before_ I was sixteen, so quit trying to stand on your third leg 'cause it ain't enough to balance on."

Willow winced slightly at the familiarly crass comment but shook off her flagging unease and finished. "You've lied way too many times for us to trust you when it comes to Angel, Xander, so -- now you're free. We won't ask your help with this. Don't worry about anything that happens to either Angel or Buffy because she's inextricably tied to him now. The Powers that Be and Senior Partners, in their own ways, have made sure of that."

"Senior who?" Xander asked, now confused as well as angry and feeling betrayed at being literally shoved out of the group for some mass murdering...shit. _Shit._ "And I'm not going anywhere. Hell will freeze over before -- "

"Before what?" Buffy finally spoke up from a nearby chair and Xander whipped around, suddenly seeing her tiny frame and froze once more, cursing himself yet again for this urge he couldn't understand.

"Before I leave you," Xander stated flatly, simply angry at everything.

Buffy took a breath and stared up at Xander, not moving as Willow walked over and began to smear her paste in strategic places on Buffy's face before doing the same to herself and Faith, as well.

Buffy sighed again, leaning back into the chair and visibly making herself comfortable. "I honestly don't know what you want me to say, Xander."

"You can start with whatever the hell you're doing," Xander snapped, finally sitting down again, ignoring all the aches in his body while doing so.

Hurting was nothing new. He just hated when it was both inside and out at the same time.

Buffy gave another sardonic smile and Xander again gave in to this horrible new urge to look back down.

"Well, since you asked so nicely. Angelus is being stolen from Angel's body and once that's complete, his human body will instantly decay and die, taking his soul with it. The Senior Partners aren't interested in what happens to Angel's humanity, only regaining control of the demon they lost when Angel was Sired.

"Faith and Willow have each been inside Angel's consciousness and anchored his soul in the past. They'll be the guides showing me what I have to do, where to go, and what to find when I get there. He's worked way too hard not to get to live like he's supposed to. I have to help him reawaken Angelus without his soul losing control of his body.

"It has to be done quickly because the Senior Partners -- Angelus' parents for lack of a better term, are dragging him back to the Deeper Well right now and once he's there, the only way to get him back would be to turn back time or wait for him to reincarnate himself in his true form.

"If Wes' description of Illyria's resurrection is anything to go by, it'd make Glory look like your average Sunnydale vampire rising. The Soul and the Demon have to stay entwined or all hell and then some will break loose. They can't be ripped apart or they'll take half the planet with them."

Xander's mouth dropped open. "I...what? You're not making -- "

"Angelus is an Old One," Buffy snapped, her eyes suddenly glowing silver along with Willow's and Faith's before their bodies went completely still.

...TBC...


	6. Splitting

**Splitting**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Mutant Enemy and all involved are the geniuses behind these characters. I just borrow them at times to manipulate them much like action figures before returning them slightly abused but generally in good shape. Ah, yes, and The Wizard of Oz, the original book, belongs to L. Frank Baum. Silly me.

**Summary:** Xander found himself unable to look away from the stricken expression on Sam's face and, for the first time, it didn't occur to him that Sam was a demon.

**Notes:** This is blatantly Buffy/Angel. Not your thing, feel free to skip those parts. Everyone else? Enjoy! Also, fun fact: Eyal Podell (Lawson) was actually born and partially raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. Interesting, no?

As for Buffy and Angel's exploits, well, I'll just have to get to that.

Splitting

Xander watched in near-shock as the three women before him went limp before becoming rigid in their respective seats and began to glow a subtle dark red inlaid with bright white light. Before he knew what he was doing, Xander stalked over to Buffy's arm and took hold, the glow overtaking him instantly, leaving him on his face in the middle of a lush green field of grass with a light sheen of rain falling over him.

Every ache in his body was gone, he realized.

Standing slowly, he immediately saw Buffy, Faith, and Willow walking hand-in-hand aways ahead of him and couldn't stop himself from calling out to them.

All three turned back in abject shock before Buffy and Faith each raced back with speed unheard of even in a Slayer and stopped abruptly in front of him. Faith seemed content to remain unnerved, letting Buffy do the talking.

"What the hell did you just do?"

Xander struggled for words, noticing absently that despite the rain none of them were actually getting wet. "I touched your arm. I -- you were -- "

"Leaving the mortal _plane_, Xander!" Buffy hissed, astonished that after all the spells they'd performed he'd do something so foolish.

Ahead of them, Willow only sighed, mentally handing Tara and Oz, each, a wad of hundred dollar bills and two kisses. That was their deal in the dream she'd had after all.

"You could have gotten yourself, us, and Angel all _killed_!"

"Well, hell," Faith sneered, finally chipping in her two cents. "Maybe that's what he was going for. After all, what are we if he gets to off Angel in the -- "

"No -- no!" Xander growled, glaring at Faith now, feeling the blood drain from his face. "I just didn't want to be left out and that's exactly what you were doing!"

"You don't think you've earned it?" Buffy snapped before turning away and beginning to run back to where Willow stood without awaiting his answer.

Xander clenched his eye shut, more tears coming, and Faith resisted the urge to sigh. Gripping his arm, she pulled him along as she ran, his feet not touching the ground, and suddenly all four of them were a group once more.

"Where are we?" Xander asked before kicking himself. It was obvious none of them wanted him anywhere within a hundred mile radius of him so why was he even bothering.

"We're in Ireland," Willow answered lightly, though Xander got the feeling she thought he should have realized it. "Specifically a few miles outside Angel's hometown. We needed some place secluded and there's plenty of open space here. It's not like the States, after all. Ireland's even less developed, building-wise, than England. Plenty of room to do all kinds of magick and no one to notice."

Just then something dark brushed past them and Xander only got a glimpse of it before it had disappeared.

"What the hell was that?"

But when he glanced at Buffy, he was surprised to see her smiling. Without another word, she took off at the same speed the dark shape had gone, gleeful laughter -- something Xander hadn't heard from her in longer than he cared to remember -- issuing from her before suddenly she had disappeared, too.

"What?"

"Shut up, let it happen." Even Faith's tone had lightened considerably as her head tipped to the side. She was tempted to yell for them to wrap it up, but figured that'd probably defeat the point.

"Where -- wait, are we in _Angel's head_?" Xander burst out, subsequently distracted by the way his voice echoed in the complete silence around them. "But -- we -- you...Angel's head isn't the mortal plane..." his voice petered out in realization.

"Nope," Faith shrugged, looking over to find Willow bent over, examining some plant or whatever, a grin on her face.

"Okay," Xander said slowly, trying to calm down. "You said you've been in Angel's head before and Willow's attached his soul twice. You've been here before?"

"Nah," Faith answered, examining her nails like they were just waiting for the bus. "I didn't see anything before 1902, I think. I think that was when Angel got to America. He was at Ellis Island and 'suck' doesn't begin to cover it. Don't miss the smell, that's for sure."

Xander bit his lip in thought, becoming more resigned to what he'd gotten himself into. "But this is new. This -- This, _Angel_ hasn't even seen any of this, right? I mean, this _is_ modern Ireland, right?"

Faith shrugged. "No clue. We could be in 2001. We could be in 17-whatever. You already noticed the lack of buildings and all."

Xander sighed heavily and ran his hands through his hair. How come he was the only one not calming down?

"You don't want to be here and Angel knows it," Faith answered, looking right at him when he turned to her. "It doesn't matter where we are, this is Angel's mind and he knows when someone or something's in it that ain't supposed to be or, in your case, would happily set him on fire. Guess it doesn't matter right now. He's just happy to see Buffy and it's making -- "

"You and Willow happy," Xander snapped, dismayed further when his sweater started to get soaked through by the light rain. Faith was still dry as a bone and he could pretty much guess Willow was, too.

"You t-two are still dry," Xander chattered, now soaked and miserable, glaring at Faith, who looked completely unconcerned with his current state of affairs.

"Yep."

Xander sighed and tried not to fume, concentrating on trying not to be angry or irritated, and he noticed his clothes started to dry up.

"Hey..."

"Ye-eah, _imagine that..._"

Xander resisted the urge to roll his eyes, not knowing if that would set Angel's defense systems off again. When he was completely dry once more, he frowned in concentration, looking around for Buffy.

"What's Buff -- Buffy after anyway?"

"The only thing she's ever wanted, Hyena-Boy."

It was the softest tone Xander had ever heard Faith use, even if she and Willow had both insulted him in the past hour or so. Suddenly, they heard laughter coming from somewhere. Definitely not Buffy's, but too...happy...dear God, was that a happy Angel? There wasn't anywhere they could hide or anything to use as a weapon...

Buffy was hauling a Founding Fathers-dressed, long-haired Angel back toward them, suddenly, both their clothes disheveled, but surprisingly Buffy didn't look very happy about it.

"Oh, come now, Buffy," Angel said in what was obviously his original accent, a huge, wolfish grin on his face, obviously unable to decide between leering and...and...Xander froze and started to back up without meaning to. Angel, or whoever this version of him was, was really drunk. Xander wanted no part of that. He'd had enough of that in his own mind, thank you.

Trying to stay calm so he wouldn't get wet again, Xander glanced at Faith, who -- he was gratified to see -- looked really pissed.

It was starting to rain again, only this time he wasn't the only one affected. Which sucked, honestly.

"They send the wrong one out to play or somethin'?" Her fists were balled by her sides and Xander could tell she was trying to stay as calm as she'd been before but, like him, wasn't managing it. She and Buffy had being Slayers to fall back on, though, and Willow had the witchiness. Xander, on the other hand, was completely...defenseless...

Before he realized it, Willow was beside him again, her face cold and blank, her hair and eyes having turned black. The contrast with her bright clothing was even freakier than usual.

Without a word, Willow summoned one of the balls of light she'd hit him with and sent it flying into...whoever Buffy was dragging, sending him flying back toward the ground, where he laying groaning and then...crying?

Angel tried to get to his feet, but Willow shot another ball of energy at him and he fell back over, a cry of pain issuing from him even at a distance.

Suddenly, they were all getting totally drenched, everything around them being heavily rained upon, and he could hear the voice of a man berating and belittling Angel, though this voice called him Liam or something, and somewhere around them there was raucous laughter and the obvious sound effects of a brawl.

_He's magnificent._

"You bet your ass," Buffy growled at his side, though Xander noticed she didn't make a move to help Angel/Liam up. "GROW UP!" she yelled over the rain and the man -- Angel or whoever he was right now -- before her stilled, his head coming up to stare at her and Xander could see centuries of despair written in his eyes even from this distance.

"You're better than what he thinks of you! He doesn't even know you! Now get up and be everything I know you are!"

Without warning, the black shape they'd seen earlier appeared and hurled itself into...Liam, causing the despair on his face to morph into wicked glee even as his clothing shifted to those of Angelus the night Buffy ran away. Xander tried to back up even further, but found himself at a wall he could just _tell_ was within the interior of Angel's mansion.

He could still see Ireland on the outskirts of his vision, but the mansion was clearly at the center, with a swirling wall of golden light billowing in the middle of it. Scary.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," Faith muttered at his other side, even as Willow took hold of his face and trained his eyes on the scene before him. "Way to go, jackass. You changed the game plan. Again. Now this is just going to be harder on them."

Not a second later, a sword materialized and Buffy, now sobbing, watched as Angel fell to his knees and his own eyes glowed before he was quite obviously souled, confused and asked her name. Buffy was touching his face, seemingly memorizing the planes of it.

Xander's stomach pitched. He didn't want to see any of this. Not at all. He tried to look away, but Willow's grip was firmer than he'd realized and he couldn't. She wouldn't let him.

Beside him, Willow was now crying, herself, and Xander could now feel her hand shaking as it held his head, hear her whimpering. He hated it all.

Buffy lifted Angel back to his feet, saying brokenly, "I love you."

There were voices swirling around him again only, this time, he was painfully aware of just who was speaking.

_It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man._

_You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil did bring you back, but if it did, it's because it needs you. And that means that you can hurt it. Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends. But if you die now, then all that you ever were was a monster._

It was then that Angel apparently regained control of himself because he said, just as sadly, "We h-have to do this the way it was. That's the only way..."

Buffy nodded, her free hand over her mouth as she tried to stop sobbing, but then she shook her head then and dropped the sword, instead throwing herself at Angel and kissing him desperately even as the portal widened to take them both.

"Buffy!" Xander screamed, surging forward, trying to break free from Faith's grip, but he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough.

"NO!" Xander yelled, again trying to run forward, but again Faith stopped him. "You've changed things, like I said. Stop."

"We...we have to wait," Willow whispered, he heard her perfectly. "It's between the two of them now. We -- Faith and I -- had to be here so Buffy wouldn't get lost, and we'll be here when they get back, but right now it's all up to them."

"They're in Hell!" Xander burst out again, but Willow shook her head, ignoring the tears that were clouding her own vision. "How can they come back?"

"They're not in Hell," Faith snapped, grabbing Xander and turning him toward her. "Now shut up and come with us. There's stuff you need to see."

"I -- "

"What part of 'shut up' gave you the trouble?" Willow interjected, taking hold of Xander's other arm and dragging him away from where Buffy and Angel had disappeared. Xander fought, but Faith reached over and hit him in his already injured elbow and they heard an audible crack as the abused arm finally broke. Xander screamed and Faith flinched, but kept pulling him, though it was Willow speaking to him now.

"We're really sorry, Xand. You have to stop resisting. You have to see the reason you really can't stand Angel, why it's all so clear to everyone but you and Giles, and why you need to get the hell over it."

Xander bit back another scream, old practice coming back to him with surprising ease. "I owe you for that one, Lehane," he growled, turning to glare at her, but Faith only nodded and shifted him to carry his broken arm around her shoulder instead, her arm now around his torso.

"When this is over you can hit me all you want, if you still do."

"Why wouldn't I?" Xander demanded in disbelief but Faith didn't answer and suddenly they were shifting again and Angel was holding a bunch of rags while burying something over a makeshift grave.

The bundle gave a cry and Angel, his hands shaking, stopped to use his free arm to pull the baby closer to his chest, shushing it, kissing the top of its head. "I mean, besides the fact that you're a girl."

But neither were paying attention to him anymore so he just continued to stare.

"Who -- " Xander started, but Willow shushed him in turn. "Watch."

* * *

The progression of images was slow. Drusilla and a dark-haired man meeting atop a cliff, Drusilla collapsing and convulsing, vomiting blood before apparently recovering, Dru speaking her usual madness and then the man's vantage point as Angel stumbled from a small church followed by a priest carrying a small boy whose hair was turning from blond to black to stark white right before their eyes.

The entire way, Angel kept stumbling, moaning, sometimes screaming, vomiting blood again and again. Xander felt his mouth drop open but was too appalled to bother closing it. Angel, the priest, and the boy disappeared inside the house the man angrily turned and, ignoring Drusilla's taunts, kicked her in the head before he picked her up and carried her away.

A short fast-forward to what was obviously a bigger city but Xander didn't know where. The boy was older now, dressed in a shirt, pants, and sweater like he'd seen on his Uncle Rory when he was about six or so. The boy's hair was silver, though the rest of him simply looked like a normal child.

"It was a scar of their ordeal," Willow whispered, a small sigh on her lips. "He mirrors everything his father is, inside and out."

"Father -- what?" Xander asked and Faith was tempted to give Xander's arm a wrench for not paying attention, but managed to restrain herself.

Willow went ahead with an explanation, "Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Jethro -- or, mostly, Agent Gibbs. That's the kid there, though he's a big guy now, all grown up like I said. Angel buried his mother after she died while in labor the night he was born and took Jethro to raise as his own. He had a choice at first and kept him, but then it became kind of a necessity. Angel gave the baby some of his blood because the little guy was starving to death."

"What?" Xander's eyes widened yet again but Faith and Willow were still watching intently and mostly ignoring him so he forced himself not to look away.

* * *

The kid -- Leroy -- was now at a kitchen table, dressed in what looked like an altar boy's uniform, patiently awaiting something. Xander wondered why none of the holy stuff was affecting the kid if he was a vampire -- not to mention how he was growing or anything like that -- when Angel came in the door, plainly not expecting the kid to be there waiting for him.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS, POP!" the kid yelled, leaping with supernatural strength, if not the grace, into Angel's arms and hugging him tightly, Angel somehow ignoring the obvious burn the cross embroidered on Leroy's robes had to be making. Xander could see the smoke from here. Instead he smiled and sighed, returning the hug with interest before setting the kid back down on his feet.

"Merry Christmas, becan."

"What does -- " Xander hissed, but Willow interrupted him sharply. "Little one. He's called Buffy and Dawn several Irish nicknames, each. Shush!"

"Now we go to Midnight Mass," Leroy said with absolute certainty.

"Midnight Mass doesn't start for three more hours, son, you know that..."

Xander watched, now enthralled. He knew that, had he been in Leroy's place. he hardly would have been worried about going to Mass. There wasn't a Christmas tree anywhere in the apartment that he could see, but stacks of presents sat waiting and several candles had been lit. The kid hadn't touched a single one in all the time he'd sat there.

"You're kidding me," he muttered to no one in particular, but the scene changed again.

* * *

"Jethro, you need to get the hell away from me before I kill you, too! I -- oh, God -- "

Angel, this time long-haired and all -- holy crap -- _disco-fied_, was stumbling around the same apartment, a now adult Leroy (Xander would guess about twenty-one or so) was standing straight-backed with his arms folded across his chest, a look of absolute defiance on his face as he watched Angel fling his possessions into a large trunk.

"I'm not going anywhere," Leroy stated calmly, not flinching when Angel vamped out and bared his fangs right in his face.

Xander's mouth dropped open yet again. If Angel had done that to _him_ he'd've probably been halfway down the block within seconds.

Leroy, on the other hand, stood completely still, his face hard, though his own eyes were now shining an electric blue Xander figured was most likely from the vampire blood in his veins.

"Go." Angel commanded harshly, taking hold of Leroy's shoulders and turning him around bodily before going to shove him toward the door, but Leroy dodged and returned to his original position.

"I can't. I won't."

Angel apparently lost his patience and let loose with his full demon, grabbing Leroy's arm and when the young man didn't move, his shoulder audibly gave with a pop and then a tear and Angel froze, lurching back away from...Xander felt his heart skip several beats...his son, who despite having to be in severe pain by now, only turned to stare at Angel, deep breaths issuing forth without his knowledge.

Xander saw, for the first time, fangs and a small divot in Leroy's forehead, his brow slightly more pronounced. The fangs, themselves, weren't very long at all but still obvious to the naked eye. Somehow, Xander knew that Leroy had never once taken human blood.

He could hear Leroy's heart pounding even in all the noise of the scene and vaguely wondered how that was possible.

Angel, himself, was now huddled in the corner of the room, howling audibly, plainly horrified with himself, his face in his hands as he cried uncontrollably.

Beside him, Willow was crying again and Xander looked down and away to see that Faith's hands were bleeding where her fingernails, blunt nonetheless, had cut into her skin.

Without once looking away from Angel, Leroy walked backward around the apartment, gathering bandages and other implements before seating himself on the ground in front of his father, removing his shirt, and resetting his shoulder with a loud pop before bandaging and wrapping it.

Angel was whimpering now, his fingernails digging into his face, drawing blood. Leroy merely blinked, reaching up with his uninjured arm and gently pulling Angel's closest hand toward himself.

"May I, Pop?"

Xander couldn't comprehend how Leroy could look at the father -- adoptive or not -- who'd just displaced his shoulder with respect and adoration, even going so far as to call him 'Pop' and ask politely for blood to heal faster.

Angel didn't reply audibly but shoved his arm in Leroy's face and the young man gently bit into the proffered wrist, his eyes glowing before they shut against his will.

Xander wanted to look away, his stomach churning, but he was surprised it was with nerves, not revulsion. He glanced at Faith, whose breath had hitched, and found her pressing a hand against her throat and was shocked to see an open and trickling bite mark on her throat.

"He -- Angel bit you!" Xander managed to hiss, but Faith didn't answer, forcing her own eyes back open while taking her hand from her throat and Xander found himself liable to have a heart attack as the bite mended once more before his eyes.

"Shut up and watch, okay. World in peril, all that crap. Get over it and _watch_."

Xander forced himself to turn away, blinking away the amazement he felt that both the top Slayers had been bitten by Angel and, apparently, shared a connection with him that Xander, himself, could never understand even if he tried.

Breathing deeply, he tried to concentrate on the tableau before him, his head spinning worse than ever before.

Leroy was lowering Angel's arm, wiping his mouth with his hand afterward, before rooting around in the first aid stuff he'd gathered.

Ignoring Angel's weak protests and stronger struggles, Leroy bandaged Angel's wrist one-handed, before kissing the bandaged place he'd just bitten and looking back up with human features.

"I promise to make you proud of me, Pop. _Le meas...slán...go raibh maith agat..._" Leroy said quietly, reaching up to run a hand through Angel's awful hair before standing with inhuman grace and finishing the 'packing' Angel had been doing for him and leaving the apartment.

On the roof of the apartment, Xander was unnerved to find the same dark-haired man from the cliff before watching Leroy stalk down the street to a car and toss his trunk in, starting the engine and driving away.

"Good luck, little brother," the dark-haired man said before turning and disappearing again.

"Who the hell _is_ that?" Xander found himself asking aloud, this time not daring to turn away as the scene changed yet again. "What'd he mean by 'little brother'?"

"Dru wasn't the only vampire Angel ever Sired, Xander," Willow said softly, apparently having stopped crying. "She wasn't even the first. She was just the last one he Sired without a soul."

Xander's eye practically bugged out of his skull at that news. "He Sired a vampire after he got his soul? Why the hell -- "

"Because an entire crew of human men would have suffocated to death if he hadn't," Willow bit out, her face sad again as this time the view focused solely on that dark-haired man.

* * *

He was sitting in an office in the middle of what she instantly recognized to be Tel Aviv, his back to drawn shades as a man and a woman dressed in the black clothing and gear of assassins stood before his desk. "He's hated himself for all of his sons, but none moreso than Sam...or should I say Elijah David?"

This Sam/Elijah guy was speaking what Xander somewhat recognized as Hebrew, not having the grasp Willow did on the language since he wasn't Jewish, but one look at his face and Xander knew this guy was one big ball of pain.

"The son is Ari Haswari -- that's a Palestinian name, his mother was a Palestinian Potential. The daughter is Ziva David. Her mother was an Israeli Potential. Their little sister Talia's mother was one like Ziva's. Talia and Ari's mother are both dead. They were..."

Willow's sharp intake of breath surprised both Xander and Faith, who each stared at her, but she continued shakily, "T-they were killed in suicide bombings in Gaza and the Diamond District. Ari's mother is dead -- a suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip. The father and the son are in such pain -- Hasmia Haswari was Sam's mate. Ziva's torn, she didn't really like her stepmother, but she loves her brother and sister more than anything. Sam knows that. Ziva killed the man who killed Talia, but there's no way for Ari to avenge Hasmia, her killer is already dead, so..."

Xander found himself unable to look away from the stricken expression on Sam's face and, for the first time, it didn't occur to him that Sam was a demon.

He watched Angel's oldest son crush his hands in his previously neat hair before suddenly calming and moving back, standing up, turning to face the night sky now before them all. He was speaking again and Willow was translating, her eyes widening with every word.

"He's going to see his father -- Elijah's going, I mean. He says he doesn't expect to see either Ari or Ziva again and for neither of them to bother looking..."

* * *

Another shift and Angel was standing in front of Elijah in what must have been Wolfram and Hart, Wesley, two people, and a green demon all trussed up on chairs as Angel held a stake to Elijah's heart. From the damage around, they'd been battling and...Sam had wanted Angel to win.

"Come on, Chief. Give me a mission..." Sam begged before Angel switched hands and shoved the plank of wood through Sam's heart and he collapsed into dust.

The scene shifted again and Willow would have collapsed, now crying again, if Xander's hands hadn't suddenly latched onto her arm and waist, completely forgetting about his broken arm until the exertion quite readily reminded him.

He bit back a scream and, once Willow was securely on her feet again, cradled the limb against his chest as he turned back to what was unfolding now.

* * *

It was nothing at first, but then leaves shifted behind a house and suddenly all of them could see Ari and Ziva watching as the now adult Gibbs (Xander supposed they were all around the same age, but that Ari and Ziva had more vampiric blood so they physically aged more slowly) and Angel's son Connor both leapt down from a treehouse in the middle of a crime scene littered with bodies, their intense distress visible even from this distance. Gibbs was cradling a boy, himself, gently transferring him to a doctor's care before collapsing to the ground and sitting in a daze, not even noticing when an assistant came over and started checking him over, much less that they were being watched.

Connor had retreated to a nearby car and was bawling his lungs out in the arms of two people in the backseat.

The vampires in the bushes were crying, as well, but no one noticed.

END

Irish translations:

Becan - little one

Le meas - respectfully

Slán - goodbye

Go raibh maith agat - thank you


	7. Reconciling

**Reconciling**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Mutant Enemy and all involved are the geniuses behind these characters. I just borrow them at times to manipulate them much like action figures before returning them slightly abused but generally in good shape.

**Summary:** "I am the dispassion," Thomas growled against her skin, sending ripples down her soul.

"I am the love," Angel whispered, a smile then blooming within her.

**Notes:** It seems that somewhere it was said (though I found it at Wikipedia) that the Senior Partners were weak by demon standards, but made themselves major players after the Fall of the Old Ones by manipulating everyone from multiple dimensions. Yeah, I'm tossing that out the window. This universe loves to contradict itself anyway.

**Further Notes:** IF YOU ARE NOT A BUFFY/ANGEL FAN AND DETEST THE PAIRING, PRESS THE BACK BUTTON NOW

. IF YOU DON'T, YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE.

Reconciliation

Buffy closed her eyes against Angel's shirt as they flew into the fiery void, the part of her that wasn't scared out of her mind wondering why everything was so...quiet. Chancing opening her eyes a fraction, Buffy found them flying open when she realized what she was looking at.

A circular chamber or something of infinite depth filled with hundreds of thousands of coffins, all moving slowly on what seemed to be river currents. She looked straight down and found that she and Angel were floating in midair in the center of the...

"The Deeper Well," Angel sighed, his hand running through her hair, and she gripped his chest more tightly. "My birthplace."

"What?" Buffy asked, now confused. "I thought you were Irish?"

She looked up at Angel and found him staring wistfully down at her, a small smile on his face. "I'm so many things. I've never remembered until -- I started to remember when I bit Marcus and then when my head was cracked open during the battle I lost it again, but now..."

Buffy looked around, even more confused. "Um, not to put on the dunce cap and sit in the corner, but if you were born here, does that mean you came out of one of those coffin-things?"

Angel shook his head. "I...I remember being a guardian here. Before Drogyn -- " Angel's face became infinitely sad and Buffy felt an untenable weight around her shoulders, suddenly. But then it lifted as Angel's face became set and he seemed to force himself to go on with whatever he was trying to tell her, seemingly uncaring that they were still suspended in mid-air.

"There _are_ three of us. Marcus, the first of us, the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart created before myself, he is now entombed here, I believe. I don't know what happened after I killed him -- Eve came after me. It wasn't until I left the -- here, because I was bored and tired of babysitting my elder siblings in these coffins -- and Marcus and Eve each followed for different reasons that Drogyn was made Guardian of the Deeper Well.

"You -- we should probably consider me in dereliction of duty, but since I have no intention of ever returning to the Deeper Well -- the real one, I mean. This is just my memory of it -- then I guess I'm another deserter.

"Maybe it was the Wolf, the Hart, and the Ram who arranged for me to be consigned by the Demon Research Initiative. A little poetic justice..."

"Angel," Buffy cut in, frowning up at him and he sighed, chuckling a little.

"Sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. What _exactly_ do you want to know -- maybe if we do it that way, I can stay on track."

Buffy stared at him, peering into his eyes, trying to see whatever was apparently supposed to be there that would tie him to these coffins.

"Are you an Old One? Is Angelus?"

Angel sighed again, unable to help himself. "Well, that wasn't long at all. Um, in the simplest terms, yes, I am. Though not in the way any of the demons in these sarcophagi are. I didn't exist until Earth was given over to Man. Still, yes, I am of the Oldest. It was my job to make sure that none of these demons were able to resurrect themselves."

Angel visibly bit back another sigh, "It does mean that it's my fault, indirectly, that Illyria again walks the Earth because if I hadn't left, she wouldn't have been able to use her Acolytes or her Qwa'Ha Xan to kill Fred and take over her body. What's happening to my body right now -- I can feel it, faintly -- I'm feverish, and have lost consciousness several times -- it's sort of a reverse. Fred's viscera were liquefied and her skin hardened into a rock-solid skin and, even then, it couldn't hold everything Illyria is."

"You're still being with the vague, Angel," Buffy frowned, raising an eyebrow at him. "We've talked about the vagueness and how _irritating on so many levels it is_."

Angel laughed, then, and resisted both the urge to let go of Buffy or to sigh, given that he knew he was the only thing keeping her from falling into the depths, imaginary though they may have been. "Ask something else. Maybe more yes or no questions."

"What is Illyria?"

"One of the oldest, most powerful Old Ones. She was murdered by rivals and originally her sarcophagus resided here."

"Until she killed your friend."

Angel's face flashed with a bitter expression but then he simply said "Yes," his voice then an emotionless façade. "Until that moment, I had nothing against her. But now, even with the knowledge that Fred is not completely destroyed, that Illyria shares Fred's body -- I still would like to see Illyria pay for the pain it caused the true love of Wesley, whom I hold a brother. It -- though, I suppose it is now most appropriate to call it a 'she'...murdered his spirit in cold blood. For that, I would see _her_ die a thousand deaths."

Buffy stared at Angel for a moment before slowly asking, "Who am I speaking to?"

The emotionless tone continued and Angel or...whoever lifted her hand to stare at it, transfixed. "Thomas. I was an original Keeper of the Well. I find it difficult to empathize with Illyria, her method of taking a host I find barbaric and cruel."

Then Angel's face, now with silver eyes shining out where brown had been previously, frowned for the first time. "I left not only because I find it suffocating beyond endurance -- you and those more human would say _boring_ -- to be here, but because the toxicity of the souls around me had begun to infect me where before I had been...you would call it 'unbiased'. I could feel it and I sought to escape it."

_Thomas_ then turned away from her and Buffy couldn't help but look away from his back and down at the endless depths beneath her, which she currently hung above with, evidently only Thomas' will keeping her from falling, presumably forever.

"I failed," he whispered, the self-incrimination echoing off the walls around them, regardless. It sounded so familiar to Buffy both in voice and in effort that her heart broke yet again.

"I know not whose soul bled into mine, who stained my hand and that of but a human man of no unforgivable previous sin with such blood. I care not. I know not even they who loosed my tainted being onto the plane of the masses to decimate and destroy.

"My larger humanity knows only of the boredom of the Deeper Well, I dare not allow him to remember the poison that had seeped into his veins alongside my baser humanity beforehand. Illyria's only mercy has been to separate Fred from the depravity she revels in. Separate her parents by ignorance of her death."

Buffy shivered, tears coming to her eyes even as she said, "But he _does_ remember. He remembers every second of it and it's driven you both mad -- " Buffy paused, shaking her head to let Thomas' terminology not leak into her own sense of self. "Crazy, having to be around each other -- I guess I should say Angelus and Angel, since you seem to be perfectly fine. But Angel...he told me not long after we met. 'You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done...and to care.'"

Angel -- Thomas turned back around then, a desperate, horrified expression coming to his eyes for the first time. "No...no, I have locked those away."

Buffy sneered now, absolutely appalled. "Well, your little plan worked like gangbusters, jackass, let me tell you -- because Angel's tried to kill himself out of the guilt he feels for whatever -- " she gestured at the sarcophagi circling unerringly. "Did all that! And no matter how many times I tried to tell him he was just the tool in their hands, he still blamed himself -- he still does, he always will.

"God, do you -- do you even know who you possessed? His father spent his life blaming him for everything the bastard could think of! Why would he think he was innocent in the face of all that!"

Thomas' expression was bitter now, his eyes flickering back and forth rapidly, seemingly filing through Angel's memories, ignoring everything she had just said.

He said something in some foreign language before halting altogether and looking upward into the nothing above them. "They are pulling me out of his body. The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart are removing me -- removing the poison, but removing me. I can feel it. They are bringing me back to the Well -- the real one."

Thomas' eyes met Buffy's again, impassive once more. "He will die."

Buffy's eyes widened and she tried to move, to pound on -- Thomas' chest, to force him to do something, but she couldn't move. He wouldn't let her.

"No -- NO! You have to -- "

"He has to choose," Thomas said quietly, reaching out once more and taking Buffy's hand before she could hit him with it. "He will decay and -- "

"No," Buffy snapped once more, gripping Thomas' hand until he glanced downward then at her face, seemingly unperturbed by the pain of a Slayer's grip. "What do I need to do?"

"Not you," Thomas said quietly. "It must be his choice. They've sought equivalence, the Powers, the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart -- the Superiors, they've all sought equivalence and will get it without his choice.

"Like my elders, he is not meant to still walk the Earth, though time is merely his reason. None of them are. You are but a reason he might -- you cannot force him. No one can force anything, not here."

Buffy's eyes widened, tears falling again, and she grasped Thomas' shoulders, incomprehensibly bothered when he didn't so much as flinch. "You can't leave him. He'll die -- you can't just leave him to die like that."

Thomas simply stared back at her, this time a slight sadness coming over his features, which Buffy supposed was something. "It it never that simple."

Buffy looked away and ground her teeth, clenching her fists before reaching out and clenching Angel's shirt that _Thomas_ was wearing. "Then _make_ it simple. Explain."

Thomas breathed inward, leaning into Buffy and sealing his mouth over hers.

Instantly, she saw scene after scene after scene -- some guy in a suit fighting with Angel, beating him to death, Angel biting the guy and feeding -- _memories_ Angel hadn't previously had and many he already knew flooding back...of Angelus, of Thomas, of _Eve_ and -- _Marcus_...guarding this Well...Illyria's power destroying half the planet because of her sheer strength...her power depleted, but still strong...

Angel's son Connor fighting Marcus and being pummeled, Angel's other son, Leroy, shooting at a man from atop a roof in quick succession, four sure hits, almost as well as she could -- Angel holding his hand at a funeral, Leroy crying but never realizing it...Angel falling into dust at Illyria's hands and thousands of the souls murdered at Angelus' hands allowed to pass onward to Heaven, some to Hell, not for the first time, but second.

Samuel Lawson, or was it Elijah David -- Benjamin Weinstein? Sam gazing pleadingly into Angel's eyes...Angel staking him...Sam, Ari, Ziva, Talia, Leroy, Shannon, Kelly, Lawrence, Colleen, Connor, Kaitlin...the children, the guardians, and their children -- all inextricably tied to _Angel..._

Her Slayer dreams right before Angel had left Wolfram and Hart had already shown her The Day that Wasn't and Angel's deal with The Oracles, but not to this extent. Angel hadn't been aware of the suspension of the souls of those Angelus killed, then, but Thomas had and he was showing Angel...the Powers and the Senior Partners -- Marcus, Thomas, and Eve's 'parents' -- following each other's footsteps, righting and wronging one another's actions...if Angel wanted to allow those souls to again achieve rest but not die, himself, he'd have to _choose_ to keep all sides of himself together.

Angelus being forcibly ripped from him, as his soul was equally inserted, offset the balance that was meant to exist between the worlds. The balance had been further offset when Sah'Jahn ripped open reality to gain access to Quor'Toth and took Connor with him -- Connor's own soul's slow destruction within that Hell.

To make everything right again, to truly restore everything, Angel was going to have to _choose_ to be all that he was, rather than have it all forced upon him again and again.

But did he have to suffer to do so? Yes, it seemed. He always would. Thomas, however, could just sit on the sidelines, going 'rah rah' when he felt like it, his head otherwise buried in some metaphorical book. It wasn't really _his_ problem, after all.

Buffy never wanted to punch anything more than she wanted to punch this _thing_ wearing Angel's face. She hated him more than Angelus, she could see that now. This thing washed its hands of everything so easily -- nothing and no one mattered.

For once, though, Thomas now looked absolutely enraged, "_Nothing matters?_ We are _One and the Same_, he and I, immovably melded, he feels, _I feel_! Even the same is said for Angelus, who would have you in a heartbeat -- would end the world to have you, he needs you so much!

"He may hate you, Slayer, but his love for you is as strong, if not stronger! He would die without you and would have, did you not stop him! Ask the witch, she will tell you! Ask your sister Slayer! We have met, each of us both!"

An earth-shattering growl echoed, then, through the Well as Thomas grabbed Buffy by the wrist and proceeded to fly upward until she was dangling beneath him, with him directly adjacent to her above. "Tell me nothing matters, that nothing you are or have been matters, and I will drop you into the abyss you seem to crave."

"I was talking about you when I said that!" Buffy screamed, but Thomas didn't react, causing Buffy to let out a guttural yell of her own and use her Slayer abilities to literally crawl up his body. "I matter, you matter, everything matters, you -- "

It was then that Thomas sealed his lips over hers and Angel came back to...share in plundering her mouth, his hands digging into her sides so hard, she knew she'd have bruises if this was at all real.

_It's as real as we need it to be,_ Angel's voice spoke in her head and Buffy wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting so badly to climb inside and simply _be_ along with them.

"I am the dispassion," Thomas growled against her skin, sending ripples down her soul.

"I am the love," Angel whispered, a smile then blooming within her.

"Together, we are the whole -- Angelus cannot feel if one of us is missing. He is left insane if the void is made permanent too long. Once we are together, we cannot be apart. We are made insane. Marcus has been without feeling forever, he is without saving. That is his punishment, though he realizes it not."

She took her mouth away from his and bent to nip Angel's neck when Thomas' voice, sounding infinitely relieved, spoke then, "As for nothing mattering...You believed as much not so long ago."

"You -- " Buffy gasped, leaning her head back and letting her eyes slide shut as Thomas, Angel -- she no longer cared which -- returned her favor in kind. "Get ripped out of Heaven and then tell me how -- how you feel afterward. We'll make -- make a session of it. Mutual ther-apy."

One of them snorted and Angel asked, somewhat sardonically, but with plain longing, "Do you really think they'd let either of us into Heaven?"

"M-maybe if you said 'pretty please'..."

It was then that Buffy felt Angel's fangs enter her throat, falling instantly into overwhelming bliss. She could feel his hands moving over her hips and cursed herself for wearing her favorite leather pants for this little endeavor, destroyed though they may be by the rain earlier.

Again, one of them snorted and then a finger was dipping into her pants, sliding them down with an ease that should have been impossible.

"Maybe you can help us get there."

"I doubt God would agree," Buffy admitted, but Angel raised her left hand, kissing the band of her ring.

"Let's not decide for Him, since you insist I'm so salvageable."

"You -- "

But then the world imploded again and she knew nothing else.

***

Buffy felt the grass beneath her face before she actually knew what it was. She rolled backward, or tried to, but was met with a veritable wall of Angel. She moaned for a moment, enjoying the light rain and Angel's skin on her body before realizing what she'd just done -- what they'd just...

Buffy sat bolt upright, her eyes wide, covering her naked body as best she could with her hands and stared around, relaxing slightly and exhaling when she saw that they were out of the Deeper Well and once again in Angel's memory of Ireland.

Looking around for her clothes, she saw nothing but the green expanse of the countryside and frowned before poking Angel pointedly in his shoulder. Angel...or was it Thomas?...opened his eyes to stare lovingly up at her and suddenly Buffy found it very hard to care at all just where her clothes were, but said anyway, "Angel, where are -- where are our clothes? I know this is your mind and all, but..."

Angel sighed and immediately two neat bundles appeared beside her. Buffy stood and began getting dressed, but Angel looked in no hurry to join her, seemingly quite content to enjoy the show.

"Stop grinning and get your ass up, perv," Buffy commanded, very pointedly ignoring his mischievous grin at being ordered around. She, herself, ignored the fact that she was enjoying it. "We've got to get back to the real world."

"Words I never thought I'd hear you say," Angel admitted lightly, sitting up and making it clear he was only adhering under duress. "Oh, fine, then."

When she, herself, finished dressing, Buffy squatted down next to Angel, reaching out to touch his side as he reached for his shirt, having somehow mastered the art of putting on pants while lying down. It was then that he looked at her again and she gasped.

His eyes were golden outlined with silver.

***

Xander, amazingly enough, was the first to see Buffy and Angel returning from wherever the hell they'd gone to that, apparently, wasn't Hell.

Gingerly removing his arm from around Faith's shoulder, he began to walk toward them with Willow by his side.

He knew Faith was avoiding him now, knew why, but she had been right. He didn't feel any need to hit her back or exact any retribution. He didn't even hurt anymore. If his arm wasn't useless, he'd be just dandy.

He was the second, however, to notice the change in Angel's eyes. "Whoa," he said, backing up slightly, just after Willow whispered, "Wow."

He didn't expect, anywhere on his list of Things That a Possibly Former Pain in My Ass Might Do For Me, for Angel to glare at Faith, leaving her faltering even further, before laying a hand on Xander's arm without giving him the chance to protest or anything.

Angel didn't say or do anything but, sure enough, Xander could feel the bone, muscle, and skin knitting back together until he had a normal arm again and opened his mouth, intending to say something like a thank you, but Angel simply shook his head.

"Just help them stay safe and we'll call it even," the vampire said seriously, ignoring both Faith and Buffy's glares and protests in response. Somehow Xander knew Angel wasn't referring to just himself with that promise.

Xander glanced back at Willow, who was grinning more widely than he'd ever seen her without caffeine, and then back at Angel before reaching out and clasping Angel's forearm with Xander's own. "Deal."

END


	8. Urge

**Urge**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Mutant Enemy and all involved are the geniuses behind these characters. I just borrow them at times to manipulate them much like action figures before returning them slightly abused but generally in good shape. My Chemical Romance. "The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You, Thank You For the Venom.". Reprise, Warner Bros., Eyeball, 2004. "Sleep.". Reprise, Warner Bros., Eyeball, 2006.

**Summary:** He wanted to float away, to -- Angel and Thomas wouldn't allow him to perceive the word for his greatest wish at that moment -- whatever, to find what he knew would stop this.

**Notes:** Why don't I listen to myself? My own advice, I've been ignoring. And paying for it, just like I said I would. **Adoxerella** will probably cry, but this has to be written or 'Middle Son' will never continue and I don't want that. Also, another homage to The Giver by Lois Lowry. *shrugs* I do what my muse tells me. Eventually. *gives self sharp poke in the side*

Urge

Sometimes he wakes with his skin crawling, the need is so powerful. He's fairly sure that if he were human, he'd be dead by now. What he doesn't understand is how, why, when he's gone through this so many times before...somehow, someway, this time is different. He's been through this a million times before, but never like this.

He's never curled up on the floor to save himself the trouble of falling out of bed. He's never simply gone naked, either, to save the trouble of changing his sweat-soaked clothes.

He doesn't understand why he's sweat-soaked, why he feels so hot then so cold then so itchy then so shaky over and over again.

He knows it only happens at night, though. Liam was always a night person, even as a child. Night was always his time. First to look at the stars, run in the grass.

Then to tip back ale, glasses and glasses of it until he couldn't see straight and the visions he couldn't get rid of no matter what -- the feeling of something pulling him toward something else he didn't understand...no matter, he couldn't escape.

And now he knows he doesn't deserve to. Liam always surfaces at night, now, and all he hears are fights long past, words made in anger and pain -- this time he can see more sides of it than just his own. If he'd tried, which he sometimes did as a human, he could see his sister's pain and his stepmother's, but most of the time he blocked them out, as well, because they were almost more painful than the endless rain of hot coals that was Father's words falling over him.

_I asked fer a son -- an' God gave me_ you!

Liam curled more tightly into a ball and tried his hardest not to shake, but they wouldn't stop.

_Gaze into her killing jar, I'd sometimes stare for hours...She even poked the holes so I could breathe..._

He knew the Others -- Aurelius, Thomas, Angelus, Angel -- they were somewhere inside, but they refused to shelter him through this. Every time he cried out for help, they -- and Angel's Slayer, Buffy, Aurelius' own lover, Svea; mustn't forget them -- they always said he had to fight, to pull his own way through this.

They didn't care that he didn't know how. Angelus and Thomas, he could always feel, were coldly detached, Angelus even bored with his pain with having seen it so often for so long -- Thomas could never bring himself to truly care, or so it seemed.

Thomas never seemed to like it when he thought that because another wave of fiery heat would roll over him and a roar of anger would fill his head, but -- really -- what good did it do him when all of them were simply going to sit back on their arses and just _watch_ as he roiled in agony.

_Shut the fuck up, you crybaby,_ Angelus told him now, kicking him from his insides and Liam vomited blood on the floor.

Angel would pull Angelus back, then, and give Liam some measure of control so that he could get a shirt and clean the worn wood beneath him. The shadow of the bloodstain remained, however, and Liam's tears mixing with it didn't help matters. He knelt, his head to the floor, and willed himself to stop shaking and leave the past and this floor behind him.

But he never left it. He was always on his knees, would always be. He remembers when he was only a boy and he'd kneel in Mass and beg God to stop his pain, make the visions go away. The priests always told him he was damned when he confessed to having another one.

In time, he learned to stop admitting to them, to tell white lies to God.

But he knew that God knew anyway because why else would he be in so much agony, seemingly all for naught?

He felt insane. He knew he was, somehow. He'd been asleep or...somewhere, all that time -- only to return to find he'd torn out throats and raped and pillaged, brought more sorrow on the men, women, and children around him then any of the Plagues in ten Bibles.

And for what? Pleasure? Pain?

Liam felt Angelus smile and wanted to drink, to drown himself in a vat of the strongest whiskey he could find. He belonged in Hell anyway, he knew that much. They -- whoever they were -- never should have let him back out.

But he couldn't even get up to stand, let alone die. He was useless, powerless, he'd always known that. What was the point of someone trying to remind him now? It wasn't as if he hadn't already known.

He wanted to float away, to -- Angel and Thomas wouldn't allow him to perceive the word for his greatest wish at that moment -- whatever, to find what he knew would stop this.

_We promised Wesley, doesn't that mean anything to you?_ Angel asked and Liam cringed before forcing himself to lie and yell inside himself, _NO!_

Angel sighed, not doing anything to cause Liam harm or otherwise intervene. Perhaps that hurt the most. That he wasn't even worth puni --

_Who said that?_ Thomas asked, his cold breath flowing through Liam and making him shiver even worse. _You believe yourself beneath reproach? You believe yourself that low?_

_Isn't it obvious!_ Liam wailed, but Angelus rolled his eyes again and sneered, _What's your name, whelp?_

Liam bristled, gritting his teeth and thinking of William. _I'm not Spike!_

Angelus snorted and asked again, this time biting as he spoke and Liam didn't understand how, but he managed to muffle his scream as fangs pierced his soul and gave a vicious rip. He was bleeding internally from his _soul_.

He was rather certain no doctor would accept that as cause to admit him. Though another part of him -- Liam, not the Others -- realizes that if he were at all sane and in his own time period -- hence the insanity -- he wouldn't know what a doctor was any more than Father used to.

Father. Say nothing of Our Father, Who Art in Heaven..._Hallowed, Be Thy Name..._

He was more damned than any of them, he knew. He couldn't simply get up and repent. He couldn't do anything. He was stuck inside his own shell and God, help him, he was completely insane and couldn't communicate that fact to anyone.

He could feel Angel taking a very deep _un_-breath somewhere inside and wanted to cry. _You and I have way too little faith in ourselves. Are you even paying attention to the fact that Father acknowledges his part in our misery or are you too busy metaphorically pissing yourself to listen to reason?_

Liam wanted to scream.

_Metaphorically pissing yourself, then. Look. I told Wesley and now I'm telling _us._ It'll be okay._

Liam wanted to laugh. His long-dead mam, his little baby sister -- a young man he hadn't known until just now -- Sam, Sam's wife, Hasmia, his daughter, Talia -- Drusilla, William, back before he'd become so fond of railroad spikes -- Penn, Elizabeth, James...they all circled him. Sam was frowning slightly and walked closer to Liam, who would have given anything to back away, but he couldn't control himself.

_...You're running after something you can never kill -- if this is what you want, then fire at will..._

Sam bent down over him, a large wetly red bloodstain blossoming out of his chest and into his white shirt even then, and gave Liam a smile.

"It's so interesting to see your imperfect sides, Chief," Sam said with a slight mocking air. Angel sighed within Liam, this time, and Liam wanted to cry for what _they'd_ done to this boy.

"I'm no more a boy than you, Chief," Sam said firmly, now scowling. "And I'm not the one who'd be shitting himself or puking his guts out if he were human. So -- hey, at least there's that," his eldest said in a mockingly chipper tone Liam knew he deserved.

"I'm s-s-s..."

But Sam cut him off, a chuckle on his lips as he backed up slightly and made a show of rolling his eyes. "Oh, were you about to say you were sorry? _I'm sorry_, but you're not that man yet. You know what, it's my fault for confusing you. I shouldn't have called _you_, Chief, you spineless little shit."

Then Sam was hauling Liam forward, his hands suffusing Liam's entire body with cold again as Sam stared into Liam's eyes and stared directly at Angel.

"Connor was right about something when he tried calling Angelus his father, Chief. He knew there were parts of you, just like there are parts of him -- he just didn't know which one was the right choice. He'd been raised to think about the _virus_ you share your body with as his father, so why not gravitate toward that one."

Then Sam smiled again and Liam had never been so frightened in all his (_far too many_, his experiences with the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart told him) years. He saw his own darkness staring back at him (something said a strange name...Nietzsche, in his head) and knew he would forever be damned, no matter what he did -- he could wash his hands in holy water all he liked. All it would ever do was burn, never cleanse anyone but Leroy or Connor.

Connor was his father's name. God, he really was completely mad.

Sam was talking again and Liam tried to block it out, but he was so _loud_ in Liam's ears. The father in him could never truly ignore his sons.

"But you and I know better, don't we? You and _I_ shared your soul. He wouldn't be -- isn't, never has been -- confused about Darla. His soul recognizes her as easily as I do you. You're my missing piece -- Pop, Dad -- my little brothers call you those names and I find myself wondering which I should choose. But 'Chief' was _my_ claim for you, so I'll stick with that. Fits, I think. You're always in charge. I guess _he_ taught you how to be," Sam said pointedly, nodding to both Aurelius and Angelus at once.

"Works, I think, that your darkness should be just as twisted as mine. Just as broken. But your -- no, I should be more personal. He accepts me as his, after all. That seems wrong, but oh, well -- so much is..._my_ grandpa says that all of this is his fault. Maybe he's right. Maybe if he'd just been a _bit_ more of a hugger, none of this would have happened. Too late to tell.

"But this...child, you were before? God, Chief, what a wreck you were. I guess if Darla had never Sired you, then you never would have met the Slayer and sure as hell never would have been more than this _whiny little boy_ you share your shell with. I know, I know -- I shouldn't speak ill of the dead."

Liam flinched and shut his eyes as tears that burned terribly forced their way out.

"I'm not dead," he whispered, bringing his knees up under his chin as he lay on his side. "An' I'm sorry I killed you."

Sam snorted, "And what good are your apologies doing any of us?"

"I didn' -- "

"Oh, spare me!" Sam dismissed, standing up and he was dressed the way he was when _They'd_ all last seen him. "See, see, Chief, I knew it'd hurt you, _I'd_ hurt you. I was just wrong about which _one_. You're a fucking _mess_! You make me look like a downright shrink! Maybe I should be yours, would that help?"

It was then that Liam froze before finding it in himself to force himself into a sitting position before grabbing at Sam's clothes and clawing his way into a standing position. "I didn' command me children ter kill innocent people! I didn' _lie_ ter them an' use them an' fer what? What could yeh have done -- yeh didn' have ter..."

Liam shoved Sam into the wall and yelled, "He's a little boy, fer Christ's sake! Yeh say I'm but a pale imitation o' the father ye knew, but yeh killed William's whole _family!_ Ye gave yers away! Ari and Ziva didn' do anythin' ter deserve bein' weapons in yer hand! If ye want ter hurt me, just _hurt me_! Come on, brat! I can take it! HURT ME!"

"Fine," was all Sam said before he dug his fingers into Liam's chest and yanked out his heart, clearly reveling in Liam's agonized scream. "FINALLY, I CAN FEEL SOMETHING! THANK YOU, CHIEF!"

_Bullshit_, Angelus muttered inside Liam as he sobbed, watching his own emaciated heart come to life in Sam's hand. Liam panted and stared as Sam, himself, watched rapturously at his heart beating away in Sam's hand.

"What'd that accomplish, eh? Ye goin' ter put in -- in yer own chest? What'll that do? You _feel somethin'_. Go ahead, Sammy. Try it. See how much ye'll _feel_!"

Sam was glaring at him again. "Don't call me Sammy."

Liam laughed, no longer naked, ripping his own shirt off and staring as the hole in his chest leaked blood onto his breeches. _At least,_ he thought absently. _I can stand now._ He was barefooted and reveled in the feel of Leroy's hardwood floor under his feet.

"I'll call ye as I like, son. Go on, do as yer told, Sammy," Liam taunted, grinning darkly as Sam's face only twisted further until finally he slipped into his _other_ face. "Ye disobey yer da often, do ye? Well, I've got much more'n ye as far as that goes. Rake, they called me, in me village."

"So you're proud of being such a whore of a boy? You're proud of what you are?" Sam snapped, gesturing at the world around them. "Who knows if you ever had any children -- you probably did, and what a father you were to them. You killed them."

Liam could feel Angelus rolling his eyes again even as Angel deflated slightly but all of them refused to let Sam bait them. Thomas and Aurelius, as almost always, were silent, simply watching, observing.

"And _you_, me oldest lad, merely turned _yer own children_ into murderers -- images o' yerself, then. You wanted to feel the thrill through them. Bu' ye can' if ye kill yerself in the meantime, ye _coward!_"

Sam snarled and leapt at Liam, his roar echoing in Angel's head as he sat up in bed, gasping in the darkness.

_...The hardest part is letting go of your dreams..._

END


	9. United

**United**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Mutant Enemy and all involved are the geniuses behind these characters. I just borrow them at times to manipulate them much like action figures before returning them slightly abused but generally in good shape. The Decemberists. "Hurdles Even Here.". Hush, Rough Trade, 2006.

**Summary:** "Oh, come on, we're a family. Shouldn't we all say to the world?"

**Notes:** This is the result of a random idea being giggled over incessantly. Oddly, it could have already happened or about to. I leave that up to any of you who choose to read this fluffy bunny.

Maybe I'm making up for the darkness of the last part, who knows?

United

_...Dad, there are hurdles here that I cannot seem to clear...Mom, there are demons around and though I said that I said I'd be all right, I lied..._

Connor looked up from pouring his bowl of Waffle Crisp, pointedly ignoring the way Angel was holding his nose at the 'overpowering' smell of maple syrup, and frowned, "I'm just saying, Dad. Shouldn't we give it some thought?"

Angel sighed, "You're talking about everyone in our very large family changing their names to suit your distaste. It doesn't work that way, son."

Connor reached into the refrigerator and pulled out the milk, pouring a generous amount and sighed, "Not _everyone_. Just our blood relatives. I mean, we all have different names and it's kind of confusing."

Angel frowned, "No, it's not."

Connor scowled, "Okay, it's not for you because you were raised in a culture where everyone had different last names, especially your family because you had a stepmother and, apparently, _Seanathair_ was married once before even you came along so, of course, this would make sense to you. By the way, that doesn't bother you?"

Angel shot Connor a confused look, "Um, no. I never met them because they were dead. Hence my father thinking he's a walking curse. The point is, you can't just up and ask everyone to change their names to suit your purposes."

"Suit whose purposes?" Wes asked, entering the kitchen and heading over to where Connor was standing at the counter, about to dig into his cereal. "I also doubt your father and brother would appreciate you eating at the counter."

"No, I wouldn't," Angel agreed from where he sat with his eyes closed at the table, awaiting his blood warming on the stove. "Sit at the table with the rest of us or don't eat at all."

Connor sighed and glared at Wes, who merely raised an eyebrow, before gingerly taking his nearly overflowing bowl to the table and beginning again to devour it. "I'm just saying, it's weird that we all have different last names."

"No, it's not," Angel said lightly and Connor rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Oh, come on, we're a family. Shouldn't we all say to the world?"

"The world that tries to murder us all on an hourly basis or the world that doesn't know we exist?" Wesley asked in a quietly deadpan voice and Connor began opening and closing his fists, clenching his eyes shut so as not to scream.

"I want the same last name as my fathers, mother, brothers, sister, uncles, grandfather - is that so wrong!"

"Well, fine then," Angel offered, "Like what? Because my surname actually is still O'Connell and I'm not changing it to Reilly. No offense to Colleen or, you, Lawrence."

"None taken," Lawrence had just walked in, one of that morning's newspapers folded under his arm, loosening his bathrobe slightly before sitting down to the table at his now-customary spot at Connor, Sr.'s opposite. "What are we talking about?"

"Connor wants to change everyone's last names," Wesley said with clear amusement and Lawrence merely accepted this, saying, "Ah," and reaching for one of the pieces of toast Angel had made earlier that morning, transferring it to his plate, and spreading butter on it.

Connor managed to resist the urge to retrieve the knife in his belt and hurl it at his godfather, merely continuing speaking to his biological father. "_Well_, since half of us are 'O'Somethings', why not mix them up and make an acronym? AOGOROG Or something."

Angel frowned, "That's impossible to pronounce. In English anyway. Wes, are there any demonic languages that could be pronounced in?"

"None that I'm personally aware of."

Gibbs, unfortunately, chose this moment to walk in, dressed in military attire for reasons none of them inquired about given that it might get the house shot up. "No, thank you. I like my last name just fine. It's my mother's name and I've had it since the night I was born, I'm not changing it because you get tetchy."

"Well, Kaitlin and I don't have our mothers' last names - I don't even think my mother _had_ a last name, so where does that leave us?"

Angel cut back in, "Exactly where you are now. At least Connor Allen Angel Reilly can be written down without people subsequently asking what language you speak and trying to hunt down a translator."

Connor rolled his eyes, "Well, how about the fact that we're all - well, probably and mostly Irish? Couldn't we just pick one?"

Connor looked at Angel, who was staring at his youngest child over his first-ever morning mug of coffee, not quite sure how to take what was coming out of his mouth.

Connor splayed both his hands on the table, staring at his first father, "How does it work, Dad? Our names mean 'Grandson' and 'Granddaughter of' Fill-in-the-Blank, right? Well, doesn't that...wait." Connor paused and then frowned darkly, "Okay, I'm confused. Wouldn't that make my last name 'O'Connor'? Connor O'Connor is...unacceptable."

Angel rolled his own eyes this time, as well as ignoring Wesley's subsequent snort of muffled laughter.

Gibbs walked over and leaned down over Connor's slowly milk-logged cereal, "Again, I'm not changing my name. You do whatever the hell you want with yours," Gibbs interjected, before standing straight and going to pour himself a second cup of coffee.

Wes dodged him to come over to the table and sit down next to Connor, trying his hardest to look like he wasn't enjoying this conversation nearly as much as he truly was.

Angel sighed, "Connor. There is no rational reason for anyone in this house to change their names. And Wes isn't Irish - at least, I don't think."

Angel turned to Wes and tipped his head slightly to the side. "Are you Irish at all?"

Wes bit his lip and tried to ignore Lilah, who'd just joined them, laughing madly at his left. "My mother was Scots-Irish. She told me she never told my father for the obvious reasons. She never told him a lot of things."

Angel brightened slightly, grinning devilishly. "Well, that would explain why you got on so much better with her. What clan?"

Wes muttered something, but spoke up clearly when both Angel and Gibbs raised eyebrows at him. "..._Ainbheartach_."

Angel's eyes widened, as did Gibbs' and the elder Connor's. Wes shrank into his chair. "I had _nothing_ to do with that!"

Gibbs was mopping up the little bit of coffee he accidentally coughed out when Wes said his mother's last name and...honestly couldn't think of a thing to say.

"What?" Connor asked, by this time joined by Kaitlin, both of whom were staring at Wes in abject curiosity. "What's your mom's name mean?"

Lilah laughed harder than ever and if Wes was a less scrupulous man he would have knocked her off her chair. As it was, he contented himself with creating a fireball under the table and imagining roasting her with it.

Angel decided to put him out of his misery, "'Doer of evil deeds'." Angel promptly glared at Lilah, who stopped laughing so abruptly, she hiccupped and began coughing.

Glaring back at Angel once she'd settled, Lilah snapped, "Oh, honestly - if Wesley gave our daughter that last name, it's not like he'd be wrong. Hello? Evil?"

Angel rolled his eyes, "Lilah, right now, you're about as evil as a doughnut. Shut up about that. No one in this house cares what you've done, where you've been, where you'll be going - give it a rest. Besides, like I told Lindsey, I've got you beat. So shut. Up."

Lilah shot Angel yet another glare but, this time, actually stayed quiet. Angel shook his head and clapped Wes on the shoulder, "You're not your name, Wes."

Wes laughed quite humorlessly, "Liam, meaning 'protector'. Leroy Jethro, roughly meaning 'the king is imminent' - "

"Really?" Gibbs asked, honestly shocked. "Huh, maybe I like my name after all."

Angel ignored him.

Wes sighed and continued, looking at both Connor and his grandfather, "Connor, meaning 'hound lover'."

"Wait - WHAT?" Connor glared at Angel, then Gibbs as he laughed out loud.

"Now you feel my pain, little brother."

"Do you have any idea how much you cried when you were born?" Angel asked simply, causing Connor to scowl and roll his eyes.

Connor, Sr., sighed and said nothing. Connor, Jr., frowned at him, "You're not at all bothered?"

Connor shook his head slowly, his accent becoming more prominent as he next spoke, "Me da was a hunter. I was aroun' dogs before I coul' talk. Me mam used ta scold me fer lettin' 'em sleep in me bed. Me da laughed abou' it an' told me I'd be a hunter. He was just as wrong abou' me as I was abou' yer own da. I'm a silk merchan'. Bu' I still love dogs."

"I like cats," Angel smirked, getting up to prepare his now properly warmed blood and pouring a mug of it, as well as one for Gibbs, who shrugged, accepted, and smiled in thanks. "Kathy did, too. Another thing we had nothing in common about."

Connor, Sr., snorted and smiled sadly. Then he looked at Wesley, who was still pale. "Yer forename, lad. Its meanin'?"

Wesley sighed, "'Western meadow'. It's in honor of a pair of brothers. My father mostly named me, not my mother."

"Yer next name, then?"

Wes chuckled then, "The first is 'Alfred', meaning 'supernaturally wise'. I suppose my father took advantage of that one. But the second...is the name I already told you. 'Doer of evil things'. Me - "

Wesley coughed, then, blushing, "My mother insisted on giving me at least something of her origins. She told me...they may have been a den of thieves, but they were noble ones, and honest. More than we could say for my father and his crowd."

Angel and Gibbs both raised their mugs at Wes' mother's words. The younger Connor, however, bit his lip. "You never thought...it'd make you something you didn't want to be? Whether you liked it or not? That you were born it and you didn't have a choice?"

Wes scowled, then, as did Angel, the elder Connor, and Gibbs. "No doubt nonsense that brigand Holtz told you about your parents."

Connor shrank into his own chair now, breathing slowly as Angel, having returned to his seat, reached over to rub his back.

Swearing inwardly, "Sorry, I take back the 'brigand' part for your sake. The honest answer is yes, which was why I tried so hard to do everything my father taught me. Little did I know everything he was teaching me, like Holtz taught you, was useless outside of the world he raised me in. In the real world, it's simply an opinion.

"We make ourselves, Connor. I may have been bitter at the time, but I do reluctantly cherish the time I spent away from my true family, all of you here and those not. I grew into the man my mother, no doubt, always saw in me, still does, even when I didn't have the sense to."

"Your mom's family was like Robin Hood?" Kaitlin asked her godfather, her eyes alight and thinking, no doubt, of the Disney movie version, but having a decent idea nonetheless.

Wesley chuckled, "From the ones I met, I should say so. They've helped me establish many useful contacts over the years. And they are very vengeful when it comes to those who use magick to harm. I haven't seen them in person in quite a long time but, from what I've heard, they'd be dead chuffed - ecstatic, sorry - to meet Angel.

"I wrote them about shooting the robot posing as my father with a revolver and my cousin, Christopher - though I find his name rather ironic given that they're not Christians - sent me my Beretta, as well as an actual bow, with arrows. You'd think he hated my father..." Wesley trailed off in mock-thought.

Gibbs chuckled, "A bow with arrows. You should let Pop play with that for a while. You know he is with weapons. Like a kid in a candy store."

"I am not," Angel rolled his eyes, but secretly wondered why the hell Wes never showed him his _bow and arrows_.

"Anyway, so you're descended from thieves, whoop-de-do," Gibbs dismissed, resisting the urge to smack Wes upside the head for the thoughts he just _knew_ where circling that oversized, ginormous brain of his.

"My dad's a mass murderer and props for it on a near-daily basis. My brother was christened _The Destroyer_ by the demons in the worst dimension existence has to offer. And me? Well..." Gibbs offered Wes a dangerous grin of his own.

"Let's just say I'm a cold, vicious bastard and leave it at that. Sounds like, if you hadn't killed Vail, your cousins would've done it in due order to avenge you. And we know Angel would have ripped Vail's head off if given the chance."

Wes frowned in confusion, "Alright, you've lost me, sorry."

Gibbs _did_ smack him, then, and Wes flinched hard, expecting a lot more pain than he actually felt. "What shortage of killers are there in this house, this family?"

Wes' eyes widened even as he rubbed the back of his head, "Oh. I see your point."

Connor sighed, finally getting back to the point. "So. No name changing then?"

"NO," chorused everyone else in unison.

**END**


	10. Meaningless

**Meaningless**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer: **Joss owns all, though I'm creating my own mythos out of his gargantuan universe. I'm told it's just the latest thing...

**Summary: **You wrap your arm, hating the blood soaking through the bandages, and miss Faith with a vengeance. You wanted to surprise her, to make her know that men didn't always just want to play around for a night and then disappear forever. So like vampires.

**Notes:** **Adoxerella **will kill me for going through with this one...or so I thought. That is all. *sighs and laughs*

Meaningless

You start to hate yourself not long after you realize it. It creeps in after the denial finally fades, slowly eating it and taking its place. You start to think, if you can just kill enough of them, destroy them like they did your mother, your only link to life, then maybe it'll kill what's inside of you and keep it from ever showing. Keep it from ever taking over.

You truly can't stand the sight of blood.

Her Watcher loved you, you know that. Told you so often, hugged you - never flinched. You still don't know why.

Just like you don't know why you're named what you are. Robins don't hunt, kill, they sing and hop. She should have named you after a bird of prey, if a bird at all. But who names their kid 'Eagle'...well, the Natives do it, in the States, but that's different. And anyway you know they're picking each other off left and right - their culture and diversity destroyed just like their lives, just like your life - by an unseen enemy forcing itself into your background just by virtue of its existence.

Worst of all, you know it's still in you. Was there before you ever knew anything, had a chance to fight. The books knew about the...the détente...you can only call it, but your mother's Watcher never told you. You can only guess it was never meant for you to know, that it was thought you might have any number of reactions - which is completely correct.

You watch your blood drip to the floor from the cut you've made in your arm and wonder if this blood belongs to _him_, the thing that killed your mother. The First brought it out, showed it plain within the shell it hid in, the shield of the soul it cowered behind, but in the end, it's all red and nothing you can or could do would ever let you tell the difference.

You wrap your arm, hating the blood soaking through the bandages, and miss Faith with a vengeance. You wanted to surprise her, to make her know that men didn't always just want to play around for a night and then disappear forever. So like vampires.

But it didn't last, it never will.

You have a feeling, you just have a feeling. You know things - that _Spike_ was descended from _Angelus_, who your very own boss - once your own employee - can't stay away from. That her arguments with Xander and Giles were fueled by the fact that neither could choose between the _thing_ and the soul, Xander accusing her of the same. You heard their argument, The Slayer didn't make it a secret, before they each disappeared just when you couldn't take it anymore.

You stayed in your room, unable to admit that you felt Xander perfectly right because you care about the allegiance you have to these people, the closest thing you have to a family in the decades since your mother and her Watcher each died.

Andrew later told you that The Slayer, Willow, Faith, and - inadvertently - Xander all wound up delving into Angelus's head with magick. You don't know how to feel about that, can't imagine they saw anything other than a horrific sideshow of brutality and sheer evil...but it's not your decision and the choice was already made.

Either way, that was a week ago, Buffy, Faith, Willow, and - God, _Xander_ - all having recovered, Xander now fully on Angelus's side? It makes it impossible for you to eat often, but you fill that void by hunting. The more you kill, however, the emptier you feel.

You try to search for the oldest ones, those of at least fifty or more years of age. The young ones are idiots, not at all likely to have true mates. Certainly not in any of your Slayers. You must kill as many of those elders as you can, not knowing if any of them, however many, are truly descendants of blood within the Order of Aurelius.

Yes, you know which clan of vampires it is that has this odd, destructive, disgusting attraction to Slayers and _some_ Slayers to them. You'd kill the cause, but you know he is considered completely and one-hundred percent his soul by all those around you and to do him in, any of his children or grandchildren (not Childer, you know the difference, understand their partial humanity, the descendants, especially, with your own Slayerhood even if you don't understand that in and of itself - it's something never explained to you and you don't know if you want the answer), then it will be your head on a pike, and you're not a fool.

The Destroyer was found by the Activation spell yesterday. His father is the Grandsire of the thing that killed your mother, his mother the thing that made Angelus...but the Kalderash, they made...'Angel', though, didn't they? Or is it still a matter of Angelus's own humanity and considering the family he had before Darla drained him of his, making him the monster he was for over a century? The thing you know is still inside him?

Is the Destroyer something to be considered by his ancestry? His paternal grandfather is a normal human, by all consideration; his maternal/paternal Grand/Sire was The Master, Joseph Heinrich Nest, one of the most evil vampires to ever walk the world. Which is the truer one?

Which one is more connected to you?

You don't know who your father is, was - if he's still...undead. You've never known. The Order of Aurelius has many branches and much recorded throughout history, though the largest amounts of it only became available after The Slayer destroyed The Master...and Angelus stood back and simply let her do it.

Not even before the one who killed your mother sat back, himself, and destroyed The Annointed One, purportedly locking the little devil in a cage and hurling him into the sunlight. At least you like to think it was hurled. For all you know, _it_ just walked away, his paramour - Angelus' daughter - on his arm, and ignored the demonic little creep.

The Destroyer was raised to kill his father, the one with the Soul. You were raised to hate them all, yet not yourself, though you still wonder if there's even a difference. Did he ever? Does he now?

We can both walk in sunlight, don't _thirst_ for the life's blood of others, though he's rather stronger than you are, possibly because of the genetics of two well-aged, incredibly powerful vampires instead of one unknown vampire, one (barely known) Slayer.

The Slayer has spoken of Doctor Haswari and Officer David by now, of Agent Gibbs, of Connor Angel, marked them all completely off-limits. Spoken of the coming Slayer Liliana Morgan Ainbheartach, whose mother and father, though human, were both once dead. She will be a Slayer, her father her Watcher. Liliana is completely off-limits as far as training. Connor Angel, The Destroyer, has _chosen_ to train with his father, one side of many.

The more you find out, the less you want to live.

The Slayer - Buffy left you a note moments ago, instructing you that while you might not fear death, might wish for it, you are not under any circumstances to seek it out.

The Slayer is in her blood. She has run from it numerous times, this I'm well aware of. Faith has never run from it, embraced it with all her being. She told you once that when she had nothing else, it made her feel alive. But that's the crux of it, she had nothing else. And if The Slayer is all you have, then what life is that?

But you've never asked her that question because it would lead to the same in you. If Robin Wood is not what makes you feel alive, then what does? The deadness sliding inexorably through your veins?

Giles spoke to The Slayers and to you, no one else, on this matter. Who else here could it apply to? Harris knows, only because Buffy told him. She brought him up short, stopped him cold. You know you are not alone in your feelings.

Officer David has never felt this way, you are sure of it. Even Faith had to be driven to it, but Ensign Samuel Lawson, later Elijah David...Angelus's soul gave birth in blood and darkness to him and he, in turn, produced his son, Dr. Ari Haswari, and two daughters, Officer Ziva and Talia David. You wonder why the sisters shared their father's last name while the son took his mother's. But then, didn't you, as well?

Darla destroyed herself so that Connor Angel, the Destroyer, would live.

Samuel.

Ari.

Connor.

_Angel_.

Each have and do feel dead within, just as you do. That you know just as surely as you feel a darkness you've never allowed to the surface inside yourself.

You sound Shakespearean in your thoughts, you know, but how else does one raised as yourself - The Destroyer, the Doctor (you are unfair, you will include the Officer and their younger sister in that equation), and you - consider that which is within us, but does not truly apply to us?

Humanity, Slayerhood, Vampirism.

How else does one consider trying to live without meaning?

One cannot.

So you won't.

**END**


End file.
